Gehry lets his ideas just flow

WHEN it comes to elite architecture, Las Vegas has a strong inferiority complex. Despite being a major fountainhead of postmodern architecture -- see the classic 1972 book “Learning From Las Vegas” by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour -- the city has a spotty record with big-name designers.

A library renovated by Michael Graves is widely considered one of his lesser efforts, and now the larger of two art galleries designed by brainy Dutch superstar Rem Koolhaas for the Guggenheim Museum in the Venetian is being turned into a custom theater for a production of “Phantom of the Opera.” (His second gallery, a small space with rusted-steel walls, still houses a scaled-down Guggenheim.)

So Frank Gehry was treated as a rock star at last week’s press conference to unveil his design for the Lou Ruvo Alzheimer’s Institute, to be built downtown. The governor, the mayor, the chancellor of the university system and many of the city’s power brokers sat in rapt attention as Gehry discussed the intricacies of his model. It’s very obviously a Gehry building.

Another architect might have come up with the front half, a stack of blocky units that will house research facilities and patient rooms. But only Gehry would have topped the back half -- a banquet hall and courtyard that will be a major venue for events and fundraising -- with

a huge folded-metal trellis.

Afterward, despite just having received a key to the city, Gehry admitted he is not a big fan of the famous Las Vegas Strip. Asked if he has a favorite design among the resorts, the 76-year-old snapped, “No. I don’t gamble. I don’t stay here very often. I was at the Venetian last time. I am at the MGM this time. I like the room with all the paintings in the Bellagio.

“It’s crazy,” he added. “More than the individual buildings, I think I like it more as a texture, like Times Square. It is an excitement. It is over the top. It is not someplace I need to go to personally. But I am excited about it as a phenomenon. Vegas is a fact of life. It is what people want. It grows out of the world of dream and desire. It is strange to me.”

Gehry further sees the mega-resorts on the Strip having worldwide implications for architecture. “You learn where it is going. You can get a window into the future. This didn’t happen on somebody’s whim. It is part of a pattern of life expressing itself this way. It is becoming more pervasive throughout the world. I don’t know if it is good or bad for the world. But it is

a fact, and it is happening in

Las Vegas. Obviously, I am

not personally enamored with that kind of environment.

“But I think architecture is going to need to take into account advertising, neon, lights, messages, electronic messaging. So we might as well learn about it, and you learn about it here, because this is the first place it happened and you can see it starting to migrate to other parts of the world. My friend Jean Nouvel just did a tower in Barcelona which lights up at night in beautiful colors. That would have never been done 10 years ago.”

The city of Las Vegas hopes Gehry’s contribution will begin a renaissance downtown, an area with, shall we say, a much different architectural legacy than the Strip. No one’s learning from this part of Las Vegas.

The Ruvo center will be at the gateway of a 61-acre parcel of undeveloped city property where there are hopes to build a performing arts center, a sports stadium and a medical center.

If the architecture of Gehry’s design for the Alzheimer’s Institute offers one image of a rapidly changing Las Vegas, the fundraising dinner and auction to help build it turned into perhaps an equally notable event that evening at the MGM. The guests of honor for the 10th Anniversary of the Keep Memory Alive gala included California First Lady Maria Shriver, whose children’s book “What’s Happening to Grandpa?” focuses on Alzheimer’s.

When the dinner and auction were over, the evening had raised an extraordinary $20 million. According to co-auctioneer Robin Leach, everyone was stunned at that total (the event the year before had raised $5.1 million).

“This was a local Vegas dinner and not for a national organization. This was a pure local effort,” he said. “I don’t think anyone anywhere in the world thought of Las Vegas as this philanthropic. This event will make people sit up and take notice.”

Of course, it helps to have locals like Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, whose private tennis lessons twice went for $165,000. Then there was the $1.1 million raised from the private dinners prepared by uber chefs Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Nobu Matsuhisa, who all have eateries in town.

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For more on what’s happening on and off the Strip, see the blog latimes.com/movablebuffet on latimes.com.