Gehry-ization

RE “A Gehry Imprint,” by Christopher Hawthorne, June 12: It’s bad enough that there are Frank Gehry bangles for the wrists of the rich, but polarized fortresses in the sky topped with live oaks?

As controversial as Robert Moses was for New York, he believed that the city was a fanfare for the common man. This city should take a hard lesson before it turns into Los Gehry.

MARK SHAPIRO

Los Angeles

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SOMEONE please tell Mr. Gehry to take his crinkled cans and puckered pie tins and go play in someone else’s neighborhood. Los Angeles is in need of genuine architecture in every sense of the word and not just more “shock and awe.”

MARK LENARTOWICK

Laguna Beach

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SOMEONE needs to take Frank Gehry and Co. out for drinks at the Edison downtown. He and the other “visionaries” of the “new downtown” need to see that what L.A. needs is restoration and reinterpretation, and not those modernist monuments of twisted steel and glass.

The best of the walkable districts across the country took pains to preserve the history and charm that makes that particular part of town unique. Too many of those with the power and the permits fail to see that history and charm under the chipping paint.

CHRISTINE GHATAN

Los Angeles