Gehry knocks critics as pavilion opens

The architect Frank Gehry, 77, who is in Britain for the opening of the summer pavilion he has designed for the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, does not take kindly to the assertion that he's only capable of creating landmark buildings like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, a belief that led one critic to say that he was "the one trick pony's one-trick pony". Gehry tells the Evening Standard: "When people want me to do another Bilbao I don't take the job."

He also treats with scorn people who deride his iconic, big statement work. "What's happening is that people have a benign acceptance of the ordinary, but with complaint. They're part of the reason that things are ugly but they don't realise it... If you add up how many iconic buildings have been built recently, how many are there? 50? 100? It's nothing. So fuck off, people."

Gehry's pavilion, which officially opens on Sunday, is constructed from chunky chip-like blocks of wood and glass. London architect Piers Gough, a friend of Gehry's, is impressed. Bearing in mind the Bilbao building's scaly exteriors, he observes: "Frank gave us fish. Now he's giving us the chips."