What are Frank Gehry's thoughts on a World Trade Center Memorial and how do they relate to me and my proposal?
Shortly after launching this site back in May of 2002, I sent an e-mail to many prominent architect firms and a list of press contacts. One firm conspicuously absent from my list was Frank O. Gehry & Associates. The reason for this, astonishing as this may sound to some, is that Frank does not have a website. Consequently I had no initial means of tracking down an e-mail address to contact his firm.
I'm going to get a little bit technical here, but I'll try to keep tech-speak to a minimum so as not to alienate non-techies.
I use several software applications to track the traffic to my website, viewing what servers are retrieving files off of my server. Then I can look up who owns the server that is retrieving the file and see what companies are visiting this website.
On August 6th of 2002, a little traffic from one IP address slipped past me: 209.73.75.112
By August 8th the traffic from this server had jumped to near the top of my stats software and consequently on to my radar.
I then proceeded to an online directory called the ARIN database (American Registry for Internet Numbers) where to my astonishment, I found that this server is owned by "Frank O. Gehry & Asc". You can confirm this by going to the ARIN website and doing a search for: 209.73.75.112.
Through this I learned that the domain for Frank O. Gehry & Associates' e-mail server is "foga.com" and consequently was able to acquire contact information for several people within the firm (Once again, there is no website, only a mail server). I did not mention the site traffic data as I think it would have only confused my inquiry. I simply gave a little context "for those at the firm that are not already familiar with my proposal"...
The very same day, in reply to my correspondence, I was contacted by an individual named Keith Mendenhall, public relations spokesman for Frank O. Gehry & Associates who politely informed me that Frank was made aware of my proposal, but gave me little other information.
Over the following week, the site received traffic from several other server addresses within the Frank O. Gehry & Associates' offices: (209.73.75.73, 209.73.75.75, 209.73.75.78, 209.73.75.86).
Frank Gehry was later interviewed for the Sunday, January 5, 2003 issue of the New York Times magazine. You can read the full interview on the New York Times website. Here is a short except:
...if you could do anything with the space... what would you put on the spot?
"...At least five or six acres could consist of a covered space, a covered piece of grass. It could be an indoor park with a lake in it and a place where you could picnic. Imagine Central Park with a roof over it... I think it should be a soaring space... One big room. And then other space could be built around it..."
His description leaves room for some interpretation, but I'm flattered that we seem to be of the same vision. At the very least I'd like to think that the amount of time he and his firm spent on my website is some indicator of Gehry's approval.
Frank taught a class in the Spring semester of 2002 at Yale where he had his students design a "great public space" as a memorial project for September 11th. I myself am an architecture student at Pratt Institute. I'd like to inquire with him as to what my grade would have been for his course?
Click here for my proposal diagram.
Click here to read Frank Gehry's New York Times interview.
