Gehry To Be Coated With Titanium

The Pritzker Prize committee revealed today that, according to the newly released details of his will, the architect Frank Gehry will be coated with titanium after his death, and the statue will be given as a trophy to the Pritzker Prize winner for the following year.

In an industry where architects develop flamboyant designs purely to attract attention to themselves, Gehry is noted for his humanistic architecture, designed to create comfortable public places.

The Pritzker committee said that, because of the current economic crisis, they may not build Gehry's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, and they are trying to cancel part of his contract in Miami, but the Pritzker winner who receives his statue will be required to include it in a future building, guaranteeing the titanium coating its rightful place as an element of today's architecture.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic of the New York Times, commented: "This edgy work of conceptual art will be a strikingly gritty alternative to the sacchrine, sentimental architecture purveyed by the New Urbanists."

(April Fools Day can be fun.)