The Only Sign of Mental Activity

As it turns out, Gehry is concerned not with the precise angles or dimensions of a building, but with the emotional impression it instills in observers and inhabitants. The ability to convey this impression is elusive and fragile, he maintains, and can easily be lost in the neat, unambiguous precision of a two-dimensional drawing.

To capture the building’s intended emotional content, Gehry maintains, everyone working on the building should keep creating throughout the construction process. Withholding blueprints is a way of making sure that happens. Forgoing a detailed plan is disruptive — it creates convolution, making a neat and well-defined process messy.