The disagreements between Gehry and city officials appears to stem from issues of budgeting as well as series of slights, perceived or otherwise, directed at Gehry by officials involved.

From The Miami Herald:

Out of loyalty to an old friend, the most sought-after architect on the globe agreed to design an ambitious Miami Beach campus for the New World Symphony -- a $154 million interactive concert hall, a 2 ½-acre companion park, and, at the city of Miami Beach's insistence, a parking garage...

Construction on the centerpiece, Gehry's concert hall, is under way, on time and on budget. But the rest of the grand vision is coming apart amid a fee dispute, political hand-wringing, and what some say is the architect's obstinacy and others the city's bush-league treatment of a genius.

It all boils down to this: Frank Gehry doesn't work cheap. And the city, balking at Gehry's fee for the park blueprint and facing a $2 million overrun on the garage, asked the New World Symphony to get him to reduce his fee or replace him with a less-costly designer for the green space -- in essence, to have the world's most famous architect fired...

''I really find it insulting,'' Gehry said in a phone interview from his Los Angeles studio. ``I'm offended. If they keep messing with me, if I get insulted enough, I will withdraw completely.''

The heart of the issue, for Gehry, seems to be the budget provided by the city for the construction of the companion park. The city offered $10 million for a park that was designed to include a "''front porch'' for the concert hall, with dramatic lighting and seating to allow parkgoers to view concerts on a giant screen on the building's fac¸ade." The budget, Gehry feels, is woefully low.

As they often do, financial issues have a way of spurring on auxiliary (often nastier) disagreements, and this case is no exception. Gehry is been charged by city officials as acting like a diva, while city officals are accused of treating the much-lauded architect with disrespect.

We can only hope that the situation is resolved amicably, because right now there are no winners and the New World Symphony is a fantastic organization that deserves a world-class peformance space. More to the point, the people of Miami deserve a stunning environment in which to appreciate their homegrown symphony.

Gehry for his part has stated that he would be willing to aid with the final design, even if he is no longer the lead architect.

Read the entire article at the www.MiamiHerald.com.

RELATED: Stacey Glassman, director of development at the New World Symphony, discusses their Gehry-designed performance hall on DayBreak. (See Attached Video)

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