President Xi Jinping's call for "no more weird buildings" last week created quite an unexpected firestorm in the world's architectural community. It seems China has become a showcase for the latest trends in architectural designs, and Xi's backlash prompted some of the world's leading architects to consider its source and implications.

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Perhaps the biggest reaction was displayed by someone who knows Xi and recently completed one of those "weird buildings," the Opus Hong Kong 12-story residential structure. Frank Gehry designed what many call the city's hottest new address that opened last year on a hill above Hong Kong with a panoramic view below and amazing views from within.

Known as the genius behind weird -- many call them surreal -- world class buildings like the Walt Disney Concert Hall at Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, Spain, the L.A.-based, 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning architect took Xi on a personal tour of the concert hall when China's then-Vice President visited the U.S. in February 2012.

Gehry wasn't so pleasant when asked about modern architecture. At a news conference at El Mundo in Oviedo in Spain, near his iconic Bilbao Guggenheim, somebody broached the subject of Xi's criticism, applying the question to Gehry's own works.

Gehry's flashed the well-known middle finger salute at the questioner, an obscene gesture indicating disdain in the U.S., but not used in China and certainly not used in regards to a major Chinese leader.

The Canadian-American architect went on to supply a verbal answer to the question, saying, "Let me tell you one thing. In this world we are living in, 98 percent of everything that is built and designed today is pure sh**. There's no sense of design, no respect for humanity or for anything else."

Gehry is part of a modern school of architectural design also including Rem Koolhaas, the architect behind Beijing's China Central Television Headquarters, popularly known as the "Big Pants." That was the structure Xi singled out as an example of weird buildings.

During a two-hour speech at a Beijing literary conference Xi said architecture should be morally inspiring and serve the people, saying Big Pants was the kind of building that shouldn't be built anymore in China.

Tagsarchitecture, frank gehry, Hong Kong, big pants, CCTV, rem koolhaas