Healthcare building has contraversial design in Las Vegas
Opened to the public in 2009, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, which is a Las Vegas branch of the Cleveland Clinic, was designed by Frank Gehry of Santa Monica-based Gehry Partners and resembles a half-finished assortment of steel facades and outlandish patterns, presenting the viewer with an intense sense of irony.
Indeed, this sense of irony is what so irritated architecture critic James Howard Kunstler who made the building his ‘Eyesore of the Month’ on his blog in April of 2010, accompanying the doubtful award with a stinging criticism calling Gehry’s “latest tortured building” a sadistic creation, but commending Gehry for his “masterpiece of irony” because of its inability to inspire confidence in its purpose.
One might agree. A building that specializes in brain treatment, on the curing or alleviation of such conditions as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, should surely provide a soothing, neutral, zen-like environment, one where an already alarmed and confused person won’t be further bewildered or discomforted. In addition, the design, if it were a brain, would be a dysfunctional one, as it is disjointed and disorganized.
However, for all the criticism leveled at the design, the center has been hailed by many as a ‘modern marvel’ of design and engineering, while a prominent architecture website, Contract Design.com has called the center one that evokes “joyful exuberance”. Frank Gehry, for his part, has taken the criticism in his stride, indicating that the center from the offset was meant to have a ‘wow factor’ because he didn’t want it to be “a quiet little building.”
In this regard he has certainly achieved his intention.
The center also carries out important work, in the months since its launch, it has already made significant progress in treating Parkinson’s Disease. According to Las Vegas news reports, the center has been researching the effects of exercise on the condition and has found evidence that physical activity helps reduce tremors and the loss of smell associated with the disease.
The center has also launched an Alzheimer’s Awareness Campaign and held their first Alzheimer’s Awareness Day on Tuesday the 21st of September, 2010 in a community event designed to spread awareness of the condition, which effects hundreds of millions of people across the globe.
Parkinson’s is a degenerative central nervous system disorder that causes sufferers to lose control of their motor skills (physical mobility and activity), as well as speech, while Alzheimer’s is a form of dementia that mostly effects people in their old age, causing loss of memory and eventually the loss of almost all bodily functions.
It is one of the most difficult conditions for loved ones, as it causes the sufferer to entirely withdraw from the world as their senses diminish, creating a sense of bereavement without death for those around the person with the disease.
It effects over 24 million people around the world and Larry Ruvo, the Nevada entrepreneur who funded the center’s construction, watched his father die of the disease, giving him the impetus to have the center built at a cost estimated by Las Vegas news media to be around US$100 million.
The center has become one of the greatest fundraisers for Alzheimer’s treatment and research in the whole of the US and is a pillar of community efforts to alleviate suffering within the Las Vegas area.
Its 13 examination rooms are complimented by research labs, a museum of the mind, a community auditorium, as well as the offices of Keep Memory Alive, the Las Vegas Alzheimer’s Association and the Las Vegas Parkinson’s Disease Association.
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Las Vegas Focus
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Healthcare building has contraversial design in Las Vegas
Among architectural enthusiasts and professionals it is one of the most controversial creations Las Vegas has seen in years, and most surprisingly it is not a flashy casino built to resemble a cruise ship or the Sydney Opera Houses, but a health clinic that specializes in treatment for brain ailments.
Opened to the public in 2009, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, which is a Las Vegas branch of the Cleveland Clinic, was designed by Frank Gehry of Santa Monica-based Gehry Partners and resembles a half-finished assortment of steel facades and outlandish patterns, presenting the viewer with an intense sense of irony. Read more
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