Architectural Statesmen

Nicolai Ouroussoff’s love affair with the works of architect Frank Gehry is misplaced (“A Messiness in Creating Masterworks,” May 18). Gehry’s abandonment of function in the interest of sensational forms, best described as Tin Can Modern, owes more to the school of architecture that gave us the Brown Derby, Googies, the Tail of the Pup, the Chili Bowl and other now-gone architectural novelties than to the more substantial works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, R. M. Schindler and others, recently rediscovered and newly appreciated.

We don’t need more “architects [who] struggle to create a new world . . . rooted in the experiences of the average man--the rebel, the outcast, the weak.” What we need is architectural statesmen who will give us all something to look up and aspire to.

DOUGLAS C. TUBBS

Fullerton