Gehry digs Playboy lifestyle

To see the architect of the moment’s idea of the definitive bachelor pad, check out the January issue of Playboy, due on newsstands this week. As part of a six-page photo spread devoted to his model of the dwelling, Frank Gehry also muses about Playboy ideals, urban living and designs he has yet to do.

“I haven’t done a skyscraper, that big phallic thing. Everyone wants to have the world’s biggest erection,” Gehry is quoted as saying.

The magazine gave him the “commission” to design “the ultimate abode for the single male.” Of course, cost was not an issue. (Call it a “pad in the sky” -- as yet, there are no plans to build it.)

Gehry, who hasn’t been single since the 1970s, created a three-story townhouse. Its features include a movable living room, a bathroom with mirror walls, a sculptural tub in translucent glass, a floating bedroom, a rooftop swimming pool with a clear bottom, and glass floors between stories for maximum visibility. Alejandro Gehry, the architect’s son, created large murals of naked women for the elevator and the lounge area.

“I thought about the tradition of the Playboy pad and the lifestyle embodied by the magazine, and we tried to work from that,” the elder Gehry says. “The goal was to find a physical manifestation of those ideals. Now we hope to actually build it.”

-- Louise Roug