ARCHITECTURE: Corcoran's Gehry Wing One Step Closer to Reality

The Goodspeed Update reports that Frank Gehry's proposed wing for the Corcoran Gallery seems to be on track to becoming the capital's most edgy piece of modern architecture. The D.C. City Council has approved a plan for $40 million in tax increment financing to build the wing.

Groundbreaking is set for 2006. If everything goes according to plan, Washington will join Brooklyn in being part of the third-wave of Gehry-mania. Gehry's revolutionary architecture -- as if a metal artist had just sniffed a lot of glue while playing with modeling clay -- already graces Los Angeles, Bilbao, Cleveland, Dutchess County, N.Y., among other places.

When built, the Gehry wing, located awkwardly next to fairly bland Cold War-era government office buildings of the Northwest Quadrangle, will anchor the eastern end of the E Street arts corridor. The western end would be Rafael Viñoly's revamped Kennedy Center plaza. (That project would be considerably more difficult to construct as the E Street/I-66 interchange would have to be decked over.)

"DC Council Approves Financing for Corcoran Addition" [Goodspeed Update]
"The New Wing" [Corcoran]
"Rafael Viñoly's Selected as Architect for the Kennedy Center Plaza Project" [Kennedy Center]