Groaning Over Gehry

Regarding our resident fortress designer, Frank O. Gehry, and the resistance to his performing arts center by the people of Red Hook, N.Y. (“Frank Gehry Is Making Waves Up and Down Hudson River,” by Paul Lieberman, Dec. 9):

Perhaps these country folks, so often portrayed as hicks and bumpkins by Hollywood, can actually see through the banality of much that passes for modern art and architecture today. Bravo to them. And isn’t Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilboa simply a distorted replica of the Sydney Opera House? But I guess sequels are what Hollywood does best.

DOUGLAS HERMAN

Santa Monica

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It’s about time that the public spoke out about the emperor’s new clothes. Gehry’s architecture is not reflective of modernist design; it is apocalyptic.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall planned for downtown Los Angeles is a twisted claptrap of building materials. The perverse structure, which looks like someone stepped on a wet shoe box, is an affront to good taste. It is simply a very ugly design, and we need to express our concern.

BRUCE JAGOROSOVICH

Carson