A Constructive Madness wherein Frank Gehry and Peter Lewis spend a fortune and a decade, end up with nothing and change the world
Written by Jeffrey Kipnis, the Wexner Center's interim chief curator of exhibitions and curator of architecture and design, A Constructive Madness captures the human drama surrounding an incredibly significant, but ultimately unrealized, architectural project. Peter Lewis, chair of Ohio-based insurance giant The Progressive Corporation, hired architect Frank Gehry to design a house in suburban Cleveland.
Over the next nine years, the project grew in scope, ambition, and budget and became a touchstone for the architectÌs most experimental ideas. The Lewis house (and an enigmatic piece of red velvet) played a central role in transforming Gehry's style and his attitude toward the use of the computer as a creative tool in design.
Written by Jeffrey Kipnis, the Wexner Center's interim chief curator of exhibitions and curator of architecture and design, the film premiered in August at a benefit screening presented by the Aspen Filmfest. To Kipnis A Constructive Madness is "not a lecture or a lesson, but an entertaining story, a drama expressed in the medium of architecture." (61 mins.)
THE AESTHETICS OF IMPERFECTION RECONCEIVED: IMPROVISATIONS, COMPOSITIONS, AND MISTAKES…..imperfection is not toleration of errors and imperfections, but a positive aesthetic….imperfections can become new styles or kinds of perfection…..
