Can Gehry’s reputation survive Atlantic Yards?

Has Frank Gehry been fooling us all along? First came the leaks and cracks in one of his buildings that led to lawsuits in Boston, and now comes a biography that reveals the 'starchitect's' other-worldly, arty persona to be a self-conscious front.

Since his triumph with the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, Gehry's swooping, anarchic forms, defying straight lines and conventional balance, have made him perhaps the most popular contemporary architect. At 80, Gehry (pictured above with a model of his Los Angeles Grand Avenue project) appears to be at the top of his game. He is better known than any of his rivals; his buildings give pleasure to people who know nothing of architectural niceties.

But there are doubts. Gehry designs are deemed high maintenance, and people question whether they will endure. Is he capable of doing more than his signature swoops without getting silly, or simply dull?

The $4.2bn Atlantic Yards project in New York's Brooklyn - a sports arena surrounded by office towers and apartment blocks on reclaimed industrial wasteland - should be the Rockefeller Centre of our times and his crowning glory. Instead it has been stalled by local opposition, unrealistic costs, and complaints that the apartment blocks are stodgy, conventional and lazy. Gehry is at the centre of controversy again.

A new book on the great man, Conversations with Frank Gehry by Barbara Isenberg, reveals a different - and surprising account - of how Frank Gehry became what he is today. "Architects in New York were kind of attracted to me as long as I was subordinate to them," he tells Isenberg. "As soon as I came out with work that got attention, there was a kind of backlash from them. They think I'm an 'awshucks' guy and then