How does the author use metaphor in the novel, Origin?

Brown uses metaphor to describe the buildings that are the settings for the novel. Langdon, for instance, thinks that the Guggenheim “looked like something out of an alien hallucination” (22). Ávila’s description of the museum is less favorable. He believes the building is “an undulating mess of perverse forms covered in metal tile — as if two thousand years of architectural progress had been tossed out the window in favor of total chaos” (33). Note that the first part of Ávila’s description of the building is a metaphor while the second half is a simile, a comparison using the words like or as.