MIT Sues Well-Known Architect

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Trials & Litigation

Posted Nov 6, 2007, 05:06 pm CDT
By Martha Neil

A famed engineering school has sued a world-renowned architect, contending that his daring design of a recently constructed $300 million building on its Cambridge, Mass., campus is defective.

Filed late last month by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts state-court suit names as defendants architect Frank Gehry and the construction company that built the angular classroom and laboratory center, claiming negligent design and construction, reports the Boston Globe. It seeks unspecified damages, but claims MIT paid $1.5 million to fix defects that were causing leaks, mold and cracked masonry.

Gehry's firm, Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners, didn't respond to a request for comment. However, a spokesman for the New Jersey-based construction company, which is now known as Skanska USA Building Inc., says it warned him of design defects in the Stata Center.

"This is not a construction issue, never has been," says Paul Hewins, the company's executive vice president and area general manager. "We worked hard to work with MIT to bring this to resolution ... but it was a design issue."

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