Frank O. Gehry is the latest and most prominent brand name in architecture. He has made a career out of curvy forms derived from tortured boxes and, after the Bilbao Guggenheim, glimmering polished surfaces. His buildings embody "because I can"; tremendously expensive, inevitably leaky buildings with interior spaces as alienating afterthoughts. They're lauded for their visual movement, yet it's a fake movement, like a dead duck that's been carefully stuffed, mounted, and posed to look frozen in flight. They lack the lasting beauty that comes from careful thought and consideration of design, like the best work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Peter Zumthor, and Hiroshi Hara. "God is in the details," and Gehry's buildings have none. They're all flash and no substance: they gain merit in the eyes of the press because they're shiny and different, both of which are poor reasons for a building to exist. Gehry is the "safe choice" for high profile university halls, museums, and signature buildings the world over; a starchitect to be agreed upon.