MIT sues Gehry, citing leaks in $300m complex

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Blames famed architect for flaws at Stata Center Globe Staff / November 6,

2007 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has filed a negligence

suit against world-renowned architect Gehry, charging that flaws in his

design of the $300 million Stata Center in Cambridge, one of the most celebrated

works of architecture unveiled in years, caused leaks to spring, masonry to

crack, mold to grow, and drainage to back up.

The suit says that MIT paid Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners $15 million to

design the Stata Center, which was hailed by critics as innovative and

eye-catching with its unconventional walls and radical angles. But soon after

its completion in spring 2004, the center's outdoor amphitheater began to crack

due to drainage problems, the suit says. Snow and ice cascaded dangerously from

window boxes and other projecting roof areas, blocking emergency exits and

damaging other parts of the building, according to the suit. Mold grew on the

center's brick exterior, the suit says, and there were persistent leaks

throughout the building.

The suit says it cost MIT more than $1.5 million to hire another company to

rebuild the amphitheater, with new bricks, seats, and a new drainage system.

The institute alleges that both Gehry Partners and the construction company, New

Jersey-based Beacon Skanska Construction Company, now known as Skanska USA

Building Inc., violated their contracts with MIT and are responsible for

construction and design failures on the project. The 400,000-square-foot Ray and

Stata Center, on Vassar Street, also houses labs, offices, classrooms, and

meeting rooms, and features a " street " that winds through the ground floor.

" Gehry breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings, "

says the suit, which was filed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on Oct. 31

and seeks unspecified damages for costs and expenses incurred by MIT.

Gehry Partners did not respond to repeated calls and e-mail yesterday from the

Globe. A spokesman for MIT declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.

An executive at Skanska's Boston office yesterday blamed Gehry for problems with

the project and said Gehry ignored warnings from Skanska and a consulting

company prior to construction that there were flaws in his design of the

amphitheater.

" This is not a construction issue, never has been, " said Hewins, executive

vice president and area general manager of Skanska USA. He said Gehry rejected

Skanska's formal request to create a design that included soft joints and a

drainage system in the amphitheater, and " we were told to proceed with the

original design. "

After the amphitheater began cracking and flooding, Skanska spent " a few hundred

thousand dollars " trying to resolve the problems, but, he said, " it was

difficult to make the original design work. "

He said Skanska, which built Gillette Stadium, the State Street Financial

Center, and Terminal A at Logan International Airport, tried to work with MIT,

and attended mediation with the university, but was unable to resolve all

issues.

Hewins said two consulting firms hired by MIT agreed with Skanska's assessment

that Gehry's initial design was flawed and that the amphitheater had to be

completely rebuilt.

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" We worked hard to work with MIT to bring this to resolution . . . but it was a

design issue, " Hewins said.

" It really is a disaster, " said former Boston University president Silber,

who sharply criticizes the Stata Center's design in a new book, " Architecture of

the Absurd: How 'Genius' Disfigured a Practical Art. "

After learning of the lawsuit yesterday, Silber said Gehry " thinks of himself as

an artist, as a sculptor. But the trouble is you don't live in a sculpture and

users have to live in this building. "

Gehry, one of the world's most famous architects, designed the Guggenheim Museum

in Bilbao, Spain, one of the most acclaimed architectural structures of the

1990s; the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; and the recently completed

IAC/InterActive Corp headquarters in New York.

Gehry is not the first famous architect to be sued over the design of a local

landmark. I.M. Pei and Partners, the architects who designed the 60-story

Hancock Tower, were sued, along with a handful of contractors and engineers,

after panes of glass began popping out of the Back Bay building and crashing

onto the street below during its construction in the 1970s. It drew worldwide

publicity as " The Plywood skyscraper " when its glass was temporarily replaced

with wood. The case was settled out of court.

, an architect who is a critic for the Globe, said it is

inevitable that there will be problems in any unconventional building like the

Stata Center, which has roofs colliding at different, odd angles.

" It looks like something out of a Disney cartoon, " said. " It's really

quite pleasurable and people like it, but it does involve some risks in that

it's impossible to keep it from leaking. "

In its suit, MIT said it wanted to create a complex of buildings on the nearly

3-acre site along Vassar Street designed to " catalyze interactions and

innovations among MIT's faculty and students in computing, information science,

artificial intelligence, and linguistics and philosophy. "

The result, said, helped to break up the monotony of a street of

concrete buildings.

" Because he's so daring, you figure you've got to be daring, too, if you're a

client, " said. " You know if you hire Gehry there are going to be

new kinds of problems. " But he said clients accept the risks because " they'll

get a building like no other building. "

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/06/mit_sues_gehry_citing_leaks\

_in_300m_complex/?page=2

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