Landmark Events for an Art Form

For years, art institutions, corporate patrons and now even government bureaucrats have been mining architecture’s growing list of international celebrities, bent on producing the kind of flamboyant icon that can up their cultural status. Architects call this the “Bilbao effect,” a reference to the growing hype that has surrounded the profession’s stars since the opening of Frank O. Gehry’s celebrated Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, in 1997. Not even the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have completely stalled that momentum.

As New York struggles to rebuild a devastated Manhattan landscape, cities such as Milwaukee, St. Louis and Las Vegas--never considered centers of architectural creativity--have unveiled impressive new landmarks. In Los Angeles, that boom is slowly beginning to spread, a sign of hope even as the country at large braces for more challenges.

Here are some of this year’s events--big and small--that have underscored architecture’s growing cultural effect, in alphabetical order:

“The Architecture of R.M. Schindler” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. From 1922 to 1953, the Austrian-born Rudolf Schindler established himself as one of Los Angeles’ most creative architectural talents. But Schindler had not had a major retrospective of his work in his adopted city. The MOCA show rectified that oversight with a collection of designs that remain astonishing for their freshness and compositional power.

Caltrans District 7 Headquarters building, Los Angeles. The selection of the Santa Monica-based Morphosis’ design for a new Caltrans building in downtown ends the most ambitious architectural competition in the state’s history.

Cellular Fantasy store, Santa Monica. A small but important work by one of the city’s most overlooked talents. Michele Saee’s Cellular Fantasy store’s sculpted, dynamic forms recall the paintings of the Italian futurist Umberto Boccioni.

“Frank Gehry, Architect” at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. The major retrospective of Gehry’s work spans more than 20 years, from Gehry’s early compositions of cheap everyday materials to the wild, sensuous exuberance of his current works. The show’s spectacular array of models and drawings makes a good case that the L.A. architect is one of the most original talents of the 20th--and 21st--centuries.

Guggenheim Las Vegas. The city’s most ambitious cultural venue to date: two new Guggenheim museums by radical Dutch designer Rem Koolhaas at the Venetian Resort. The result: monuments to high ideals in a sea of kitsch.

Los Angeles Central High School No. 2. A major commission for the team of Robert Mangurian and Mary Ann Ray, who have long been fixtures of Los Angeles’ academic scene but who have yet to produce a significant work of architecture here. Central High School No. 2, scheduled to open in 2004, should change that.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The selection of Rem Koolhaas’ design for a new LACMA to replace the existing Wilshire Boulevard campus came as a blast of fresh air for the city. If it is built, the design’s conceptual power could make it one of the most compelling museum spaces in the world.

“Mies in Berlin” at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and “Mies in America” at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. The two shows will stand as the definitive presentation of Mies van der Rohe’s oeuvre for years. The shows covered Mies’ roots in the neo-classical landscape of his native Germany and his tremendous effect on U.S. architecture.

Pulitzer Foundation, St. Louis. Tadao Ando has long been considered Japan’s foremost Modernist. The Pulitzer Foundation, his first U.S. work, shows why. Its tough concrete forms and perfectly proportioned spaces--set around a tranquil reflecting pool--have an intimate, lyrical quality that places it among his best work.

Quadracci Pavilion at Milwaukee Art Museum. The first work by the celebrated Spanish architect-engineer Santiago Calatrava in the U.S., the pavilion has graceful, anthropomorphic forms--which feature two gigantic light screens that fold up and down like wings--pushing his high-tech organicism to a new level.

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Nicolai Ouroussoff is The Times’ architecture critic.