Frank Owen Gehry

* I'm also a:

Architect

30JAN 2012

Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Brain / Frank Owen Gehry

Posted in Architecture - Healthcare by Frank Owen Gehry

In architecture I love minimal, efficient, and white cubes that let outside light generously pour in and its structure does not get in the way of its function.

I also love modern sculpture and modern roller coasters. Architect, product designer, Frank Gehry for sure gets my divided attention.

Here’s his latest structure, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Groundbreaking in 2007, open for patient care in 2009 and completed in 2010. Gehry agreed to design the building only after discovering he shared a bond with its founder, Larry Ruvo.

Both men suffered personal losses to degenerative brain diseases.

Ruvo lost his father to Alzheimer’s disease and Gehry’s analyst’s wife succumbed to Huntington’s disease.

The $100 million complex comprises two wings connected by an open courtyard: a dedicated research center, located at the northern end of the building, and a ‘for-hire’ event space, dubbed the Life Activity Center, located at the southern end. Architecturally, the two spaces are dramatically different and yet together they form a cohesive whole.

A four-story clinic, houses medical offices, patient rooms and research space, is rational, conventional, and rectilinear in geometry.

By contrast, the Life Activity Center ( above photo ) is a soaring sculptural volume tucked beneath a signature Gehry stainless steel roof. Designed as an event space, proceeds fund the center’s research.

The Center operates as an outpatient treatment and research facility and includes 13 examination rooms, offices for health care practitioners and researchers, a “Museum of the Mind,” and a community auditorium.

The Center also serves as the headquarters for Keep Memory Alive Foundation (owner of the building), the Las Vegas Alzheimer’s Association and the Las Vegas Parkinson’s Disease Association..

Comments

No comments