THE MAN WHO KIDNAPPED GEHRY

摘要

What do you do if you're a budding developer and you want to hire the world's best architect? Ask Josh Arghiros. Passing up the time-honoured tactics of building up one's reputation, forging contacts and employing a little good old-fashioned flattery, he went for a more extreme option. Kidnap. Arghiros, a wiry, 41-year-old Greek Cypriot, had made a name for himself in his home town of Brighton by doing a number of medium-sized projects through his company Karis Developments. But when the city council said it wanted to turn the King Alfred Leisure Centre into a £200m mixed-use landmark, he jumped at the chance. And, not one to do things by halves, he also knew that there was only one man with the creative vision and sense of fun to put the great into King Alfred. That someone, as anyone who lives in Bilbao could tell you, was Frank Gehry.