by Michael J. Crosbie

Just when you thought the media culture couldn't get any more juiced about Frank Gehry, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City delivers a watermelon for the summer. "Frank Gehry, Architect" opened at Frank Lloyd Wright's marvel on Fifth Avenue on May 18, 2001 and continues through the long, hot summer, until the last Sunday in August.

The exhibit occupies the entire Wright building and a couple of the galleries in the Guggenheim addition. From the bottom of Wright's ramp and spiraling all the way to the top, this retrospective delivers one juicy chunk of Frank Gehry after another, about 40 projects in all, arranged chronologically.

The show starts with Gehry's own house in Santa Monica, California (which he started wrapping in chain-link fence almost 25 years ago) and ends with a work in progress: the Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now under construction.

In between, all of Gehry's greatest hits are arrayed: the Guggenheim in Bilbao (of course); the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague (affectionately known as "Fred and Ginger"), the yet-to-be realized Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; schools of wriggling, scaly fish; the Loyola Law School (also in L.A.); and the Vitra Design Museum in Germany.

Gehry Residence, Santa Monica, California. Photo: Tim Street-Porter Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, California. Photo: Tim Street-Porter   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.