Frank Gehry s UTS Dr Chau Chak Wing Building opened

Frank Gehry’s UTS Dr Chau Chak Wing Building openedThe official opening of Australia’s first Frank Gehry building occurred on Monday with the opening of the UTS $180 million Dr Chau Chak Wing Building. The building is the result of a strategic decision by UTS to position itself as a global centre of innovation.Attendees included the Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, federal education minister Christopher Pyne and Mr Gehry himself.The building, commonly referred to as “a crumpled brown paper bag” was inspired by Gehry’s 2009 visit to see the old Dairy Farmers site in Ultimo. After meeting with the business school’s dean, Gehry scribbled a design for a treehouse shaped building with a central trunk with branches for learning and reflecting.Gehry is best known for the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles, but said his first Australian work was unique. It is constructed from more than 320,000 hand-placed bricks and glass slabs.The buildings is named after Dr Chau Chak Wing, who donated $20 million to the project. His only son who studied architecture at UTS is a great admirer of Gehry. A site tour of the building will be held next month.