GEHRY AND GORMLEY PROJECT CANCELED; LEHMAN TO SELL COLLECTION

A plan by the architect Frank Gehry and the artist Antony Gormley to redesign the King Alfred Leisure Center in Brighton and Hove, on the English south coast, was canceled over the weekend, the Architects’ Journal reported via the New York Times_. In August, the Dutch bank ING told the city council that it was withdrawing financing from the project, which would have brought the seaside town 750 new apartments and a sports complex, designed by Gehry and the artist Antony Gormley, as well as the architectural firms CZWG Architects and HOK Sport, at an estimated cost of $453 million. On Sunday, the city council informed the real estate developer behind the project that it had been unable to find financing.

In other news, the bankrupt Lehman Brothers is planning to sell at least eight million dollars’ worth of an art collection that once decorated the offices of the 150-year-old investment bank, reports Reuters. The company filed court papers on Monday seeking authority to pay fees to art handlers who provided warehousing and framing services prior to the bankruptcy. Lehman said it needed to pay the fees so it could access the artwork and show it to potential buyers. Much of the art is being stored in warehouses in New York and Paris, Lehman said. Other pieces of artwork are still located in the company’s offices, the court documents showed. It did not specify the value of the additional artworks. Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection on September 15 in the largest filing in US history. In the past few weeks, Lehman has focused on selling some of its more tangible assets. In addition to the art collection, Lehman filed papers last month to sell fifty acres of undeveloped land in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, for $6.25 million.