Cleveland Clinic for Brain Health, Las Vegas, designed by Frank Gehry

Cleveland Clinic for Brain Health, Las Vegas, designed by Frank Gehry (roof addition by Netti & Rosebank)

There are literally dozens and dozens of Frank Gehry-designed buildings scattered across the globe and more in the pipeline. Even Sydney’s University of Technology has acquired its own Gehry.

As brilliant and talented as Frank Gehry is, there’s a sameness about all those leant-over facades, distorted planes and bug-eyed windows. A handful of highly distinctive buildings by a great architect is brilliant but too many that look too alike is too much. They almost warrant their own collective noun, perhaps a Jaded of Gehrys.

I wonder if in twenty years we’ll look at his buildings in the same slightly baffled and embarrassed way we look back on other era-specific icons like platform shoes. And perhaps in forty years we’ll look at them with reverence again.