Frank Gehry Takes a Joke

By way of Gothamist, we were pointed to a story coming up in the new issue of the New Yorker about Frank Gehry finding a shirt made by Barnaby Harris, the maker of extremely popular, pointless shirts with the set-up: “Fuck [insert product, event or person here]” that read “Fuck Frank Gehry.” And Frank, being the nice guy he is, decided to just start wearing it around the office, sort of like those bands who get t-shirts printed “[band name] sucks!” just so they can jump ahead of the curve. Here’s a bit:

It was suggested to Gehry, who once had a cameo on “The Simpsons,” that for a high-powered architect he had an unusual ability to take a joke. “Yeah,” he said, “because as I’ve gotten to be pretty well known there’s a lot of negative stuff written, right? People potshot at you. So I sort of ignore it. You know, when Bilbao was presented publicly, there was a candlelight vigil against me.” He let out a rueful laugh. “And then there was a thing in a Spanish paper saying, ‘Kill the American Architect.’ That was scary. So I stood beside the President every time there was an event. I figured, if they’re gonna kill me…Anyway. Once the building was built, I could live there for free. And the same thing with Disney Hall — when it was first shown they called it broken crockery, and now everybody thinks it’s great. So it takes a while.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.