February 20, 2006 | 10:45 a.m.

The Architect and his glasses. New York architect Rafael Viñoly has asked that the lawsuit filed against his prestigious firm by Philadelphia's Kimmel Center be dismissed. The Kimmel Center is suing Viñoly over delays and cost overruns in the construction of their new building, for which Viñoly was the architect. The news was carried in today's editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Jay Bargmann, the firm's senior vice president, tells Ink reporter Peter Dobrin that in a 2004 meeting, Kimmel Center president Janice Price characterized their lawsuit as a "fund-raising opportunity." In the article, Ms. Price calls that claim "absolutely false." Viñoly himself doesn't speak to Dobrin in the piece, but Bargmann says the program kept changing, and the building increased in size by 50 percent, and that the Kimmel's own unstable plan was the reason for the difficulties in the construction. Viñoly has countersued subcontractors who worked with him on the job. Earlier: Life Getting Hot for Architect Rafael Vinoly - Tom McGeveran