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Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned
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. His works are considered among the most important of contemporary architecture in the 2010
World Architecture Survey The World Architecture Survey was conducted in 2010 by '' Vanity Fair'', to determine the most important works of contemporary architecture. 52 leading architects, teachers, and critics, including several Pritzker Prize winners and deans of major ar ...
, leading '' Vanity Fair'' to call him "the most important architect of our age". He is also the designer of the National
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial is a United States presidential memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th President of the United States. ...
.


Early life

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Ontario, to parents Sadie Thelma (née Kaplanski/Caplan) and Irving Goldberg. His father was born in Brooklyn, New York, to
Russian Jewish The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...
parents, and his mother was a Polish Jewish immigrant born in Łódź.''
Finding Your Roots ''Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'' is a documentary television series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. that premiered on March 25, 2012, on PBS. In each episode, celebrities are presented with a "book of life" that is compiled with ...
'', February 2, 2016, PBS
A creative child, he was encouraged by his grandmother, Leah Caplan, with whom he built little cities out of scraps of wood. With these scraps from her husband's hardware store, she entertained him for hours, building imaginary houses and futuristic cities on the living room floor. Gehry's use of corrugated steel, chain-link fencing, unpainted
plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...
, and other utilitarian or "everyday" materials was partly inspired by spending Saturday mornings at his grandfather's hardware store. He spent time drawing with his father, and his mother introduced him to the world of art. "So the creative genes were there", Gehry says. "But my father thought I was a dreamer, I wasn't gonna amount to anything. It was my mother who thought I was just reticent to do things. She would push me." He was given the
Hebrew name A Hebrew name is a name of Hebrew origin. In a more narrow meaning, it is a name used by Jews only in a religious context and different from an individual's secular name for everyday use. Names with Hebrew origins, especially those from the H ...
"Ephraim" by his grandfather, but used it only at his bar mitzvah.


Education

In 1947, Gehry's family immigrated to the United States, settling in California. He got a job driving a delivery truck and studied at Los Angeles City College. He went on to graduate from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture. During that time, he became a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi. According to Gehry, "I was a truck driver in L.A., going to City College, and I tried radio announcing, which I wasn't very good at. I tried chemical engineering, which I wasn't very good at and didn't like, and then I remembered. You know, somehow I just started wracking my brain about, 'What do I like?' Where was I? What made me excited? And I remembered art, that I loved going to museums and I loved looking at paintings, loved listening to music. Those things came from my mother, who took me to concerts and museums. I remembered Grandma and the blocks, and just on a hunch, I tried some architecture classes." Gehry graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954. He then spent time away from architecture in numerous other jobs, including service in the United States Army. In the fall of 1956, he moved his family to Cambridge, where he studied city planning at the
Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...
. He left before completing the program, disheartened and "underwhelmed". His progressive ideas about socially responsible architecture were under-realized, and the final straw occurred when he sat in on a discussion of one professor's "secret project in progress"—a palace that he was designing for right-wing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973).


Career

Gehry returned to Los Angeles to work for Victor Gruen Associates, with whom he had apprenticed while at USC. In 1957, at age 28, he was given the chance to design his first private residence with friend and old classmate
Greg Walsh Greg is a masculine given name, and often a shortened form of the given name Gregory (given name), Gregory. Greg (more commonly spelled "Gregg (surname), Gregg") is also a surname. People with the name *Greg Abbott (disambiguation), multiple peopl ...
. Construction was done by another neighbor across the street from his wife's family, Charlie Sockler. Built in Idyllwild, California for his wife Anita's family neighbor Melvin David, the over "David Cabin" shows features that were to become synonymous with Gehry's later work, including beams protruding from the exterior sides, vertical-grain douglas fir detail, and exposed unfinished ceiling beams. It also shows strong Asian influences, stemming from his earliest inspirations, such as the Shosoin Treasure House in Nara, Japan. In 1961, Gehry moved to Paris, where he worked for architect Andre Remondet. In 1962, he established a practice in Los Angeles that became Frank Gehry and Associates in 1967, then Gehry Partners in 2001. His earliest commissions were in Southern California, where he designed a number of innovative commercial structures such as Santa Monica Place (1980) and residential buildings such as the eccentric Norton House (1984) in Venice, California. Among these works, Gehry's most notable design may be the renovation of his own Santa Monica residence. Originally built in 1920 and purchased by Gehry in 1977, it features a metallic exterior wrapped around the original building that leaves many of the original details visible. Gehry still resides there. Other of Gehry's buildings completed during the 1980s include the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (1981) in San Pedro, and the
California Aerospace Museum The California Science Center (sometimes spelled California ScienCenter) is a state agency and museum located in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, next to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the University of Southern California. B ...
(1984) at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles. In 1989, Gehry received the
Pritzker Architecture Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...
, where the jury described him: "Always open to experimentation, he has as well a sureness and maturity that resists, in the same way that Picasso did, being bound either by critical acceptance or his successes. His buildings are juxtaposed collages of spaces and materials that make users appreciative of both the theatre and the back-stage, simultaneously revealed." Gehry continued to design other notable buildings in California, such as the Chiat/Day Building (1991) in Venice, in collaboration with Claes Oldenburg, which is well known for its massive sculpture of binoculars. He also began receiving larger national and international commissions, including his first European commission, the Vitra International Furniture Manufacturing Facility and Design Museum in Germany, completed in 1989. It was soon followed by other major commissions including the
Frederick Weisman Museum of Art The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1934 as University Gallery, the museum was originally housed in an upper floor of the university's Northrop Auditorium. In 19 ...
(1993) in Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Cinémathèque Française (1994) in Paris; and the
Dancing House The Dancing House ( cs, Tančící dům), or Fred and Ginger, is the nickname given to the Nationale-Nederlanden building on the Rašínovo nábřeží ( Rašín Embankment) in Prague, Czech Republic. It was designed by the Croatian-Czech archit ...
(1996) in Prague. From 1994 to 1996 a couple buildings by Gehry for a Public housing project were realized in Goldstein, part of Frankfurt-Schwanheim (1994) In 1997, Gehry vaulted to a new level of international acclaim when the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in Bilbao, Spain. Hailed by '' The New Yorker'' as a "masterpiece of the 20th century", and by legendary architect Philip Johnson as "the greatest building of our time", the museum became famous for its striking yet aesthetically pleasing design and its positive economic effect on the city. Since then, Gehry has regularly won major commissions and established himself as one of the world's most notable architects. His best-received works include several concert halls for classical music. The boisterous, curvaceous
Walt Disney Concert Hall The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, California, is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center and was designed by Frank Gehry. It was opened on October 24, 2003. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Ave ...
(2003) in
downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...
is the centerpiece of the neighborhood's revitalization; the '' Los Angeles Times'' called it "the most effective answer to doubters, naysayers, and grumbling critics an American architect has ever produced". Gehry also designed the open-air
Jay Pritzker Pavilion Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Str ...
(2004) in Chicago's
Millennium Park Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, opened in 2004 and intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center near ...
; and the understated New World Center (2011) in
Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...
, which the ''LA Times'' called "a piece of architecture that dares you to underestimate it or write it off at first glance." His other notable works include academic buildings such as the
Stata Center The Ray and Maria Stata Center or Building 32 is a 430,000-square-foot (40,000 m2) academic complex designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The building opened for initial ...
(2004) at MIT, and the Peter B. Lewis Library (2008) at Princeton University; museums such as the Museum of Pop Culture (2000) in Seattle, Washington; commercial buildings such as the
IAC Building The IAC Building, InterActiveCorp's headquarters located at 555 West 18th Street on the northeast corner of Eleventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a Frank Gehry-designed building that was completed in 2007. ...
(2007) in New York City; and residential buildings, such as Gehry's first skyscraper, the Beekman Tower at 8 Spruce Street (2011) in New York City. Gehry's recent major international works include the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at the University of Technology Sydney, completed in 2014, and the Chau Chak Wing, with its 320,000 bricks in "sweeping lines", described as "10 out of 10" on a scale of difficulty. An ongoing project is the
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is a planned art museum, to be located in Saadiyat Island cultural district in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Upon completion, it is planned to be the largest of the Guggenheim museums. Architect Frank Gehry designed th ...
on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates. Other significant projects such as the Mirvish Towers in Toronto, and a multi-decade renovation of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
, are currently in the design stage. In October 2013, Gehry was appointed joint architect with
Foster + Partners Foster + Partners is a British architectural, engineering, and integrated design practice founded in 1967 as Foster Associates by Norman Foster. It is the largest architectural firm in the UK with over 1,500 employees in 13 studios worldwide. ...
to design the High Street phase of the development of Battersea Power Station in London, Gehry's first project there. In recent years, some of Gehry's more prominent designs have failed to go forward. In addition to unrealized designs for the
Corcoran Art Gallery The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
expansion in Washington, DC, and a new Guggenheim museum near the South Street Seaport in New York City, Gehry was notoriously dropped by developer
Bruce Ratner Bruce Ratner (born January 23, 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American philanthropist, real estate developer, and former minority owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. Family and education Ratner was born into a Jewish family in the Cleveland metro ...
from the Pacific Park (Brooklyn) redevelopment project, and in 2014 as the designer of the
World Trade Center Performing Arts Center The Perelman Performing Arts Center, branded as PAC NYC, is a multi-space performing arts center at the northeast corner of the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York City. The Performing Arts Center is located at the intersection of V ...
in New York City. Some stalled projects have recently shown progress: After many years and a dismissal, Gehry was recently reinstated as architect for the
Grand Avenue Project The Grand Avenue Project is currently under development in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles along Grand Avenue. The project consists of a revitalization of Grand Park and surrounding lots administered by the Grand Avenue Auth ...
in Los Angeles, and though his controversial design of the National
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial is a United States presidential memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th President of the United States. ...
in Washington, DC has had numerous delays during the approval process with the United States Congress, it was finally approved in 2014 with a modified design. In 2014, two significant, long-awaited museums designed by Gehry opened: the
Biomuseo Biomuseo is a museum focused on the natural history of Panama, whose isthmus was formed very recently in geologic time, with major impact on the ecology of the Western Hemisphere. Located on the Amador Causeway in Panama City, Panama, it was desig ...
, a biodiversity museum in Panama City, Panama; and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a modern art museum in the Bois de Boulogne park in Paris, France, which opened to some rave reviews. Also in 2014, Gehry was commissioned by
River LA River LA is a nonprofit working on the revitalization of the Los Angeles River. The organization, formerly known as the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation, was founded in 2009 by the City of LA to coordinate river policy as part of the Lo ...
(formerly the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation), a nonprofit group founded by the city of Los Angeles in 2009 to coordinate river policy, to devise a wide-ranging new plan for the river. In February 2015, the new AU$180 million building for the University of Technology Sydney was officially opened, whose façade has more than 320,000 hand-placed bricks and glass slabs. Gehry said he would not design a building like the "crumpled paper bag" again. Gehry told the French newspaper ''
La Croix La Croix primarily refers to: * ''La Croix'' (newspaper), a French Catholic newspaper * La Croix Sparkling Water, a beverage distributed by the National Beverage Corporation La Croix or Lacroix may also refer to: Places * Lacroix-Barrez, a muni ...
'' in November 2016 that President of France
François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
had assured him he could relocate to France if Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. The following month, Gehry said that he had no plans to move. Trump and he exchanged words in 2010 when Gehry's 8 Spruce Street, originally known as Beekman Tower, was built taller than the nearby Trump Building, which until then was New York City's tallest residential building. Notable Gehry-designed buildings completed in the 2020s include the
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial is a United States presidential memorial in Washington, D.C. honoring Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th President of the United States. ...
in Washington, DC and the
LUMA Arles Luma Arles is an arts center in Arles, France, featuring a 15,000 square meter tower building designed by the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry for the LUMA Foundation. For the building Gehry took some of his inspiration from the post-impres ...
museum in France. In 2021, noting Gehry's progress on an increasing number of significant projects in his hometown, including the Grand Avenue Project, a concert hall for the
Youth Orchestra Los Angeles Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) is the Los Angeles Philharmonic's initiative to establish youth orchestra programs in underprivileged communities throughout Los Angeles. Modeled on Venezuela's El Sistema, a program which brings classical music ...
, and an office building for Warner Bros., The Architect's Newspaper stated that "Seventy-four years after he moved there from his native Toronto, L.A. is looking more and more like Gehry Country."


Architectural style

Said to "defy categorisation", Gehry's work reflects a spirit of experimentation coupled with a respect for the demands of professional practice, and has remained largely unaligned with broader stylistic tendencies or movements. With his earliest educational influences rooted in modernism, Gehry's work has sought to escape modernist stylistic tropes while remaining interested in some of its underlying transformative agendas. Continually working between given circumstances and unanticipated materializations, he has been assessed as someone who "made us produce buildings that are fun, sculpturally exciting, good experiences", although his approach may become "less relevant as pressure mounts to do more with less". Gehry's style at times seems unfinished or even crude, but his work is consistent with the California "
funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
" art movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, which featured the use of inexpensive found objects and nontraditional media such as clay to make serious art. His works always have at least some element of deconstructivism; he has been called "the apostle of chain-link fencing and corrugated metal siding". However, a retrospective exhibit at New York's Whitney Museum in 1988 revealed that he is also a sophisticated classical artist who knows European art history and contemporary sculpture and painting.


Gallery

File:Barcelona Gehry Golden Fish 02.jpg, "El Peix", fish sculpture in front of the
Port Olímpic The Port Olímpic ( en, Olympic Harbour) is a marina located in Barcelona, Catalonia. Located east of the Port of Barcelona, it hosted the sailing events for the 1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano ...
in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain (1992) File:Case danzanti.jpg,
Dancing House The Dancing House ( cs, Tančící dům), or Fred and Ginger, is the nickname given to the Nationale-Nederlanden building on the Rašínovo nábřeží ( Rašín Embankment) in Prague, Czech Republic. It was designed by the Croatian-Czech archit ...
in Prague (1996) File:Aerial view of EMPSFM.jpg, The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle (2000) File:Gehry-Tower office building Goethestrasse Reuterstrasse Mitte Hannover Germany.jpg, Gehry Tower in Hanover, Germany (2001) File:Peter B. Lewis Bldg.JPG,
Weatherhead School of Management The Weatherhead School of Management is a private business school of Case Western Reserve University located in Cleveland, Ohio. Weatherhead offers programs concentrated in sustainability, design innovation, healthcare, organizational behavior, gl ...
,
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...
,
Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
(2002) File:Disney Concert Hall by Carol Highsmith edit2.jpg,
Walt Disney Concert Hall The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, California, is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center and was designed by Frank Gehry. It was opened on October 24, 2003. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Ave ...
in Los Angeles (2003) File:Bard College Fisher Center front view.jpg,
Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College is a performance hall located in the Hudson Valley hamlet of Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The center provides audiences with performances and programs in orchestral, chamber, ...
, Bard College,
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York Annandale-on-Hudson is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, located in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston. The hamlet consists mainly of the Bard College campus. Municipal services Emerge ...
(2003) File:MIT Campus.jpg,
Stata Center The Ray and Maria Stata Center or Building 32 is a 430,000-square-foot (40,000 m2) academic complex designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The building opened for initial ...
, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2004) File:BP Bridge.jpg,
BP Pedestrian Bridge The BP Pedestrian Bridge, or simply BP Bridge, is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, United States. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Maggie Daley Park (formerly, Daley Bicentennial Plaza) with Millennium Park, both pa ...
,
Millennium Park Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, opened in 2004 and intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center near ...
, Chicago (2004) File:Herford MARTa 88.jpg, MARTa Herford,
Herford, Germany Herford (; nds, Hiarwede) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, located in the lowlands between the hill chains of the Wiehen Hills and the Teutoburg Forest. It is the capital of the district of Herford. Geography Geographic locatio ...
(2005) File:Elciego3.jpg, Hotel Marqués de Riscal in Elciego, Spain (2006) File:Edificio IAC InterActiveCorp.JPG, The headquarters of IAC in Manhattan, New York City (2007) File:AGO at dusk.jpg, Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (2008) File:Gallery AfricanAmerican.jpg, Gallery of African American Art,
Ohr-O'Keefe Museum Of Art The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum Of Art is a non-profit art museum located in Biloxi, Mississippi, dedicated to the ceramics of George E. Ohr, the self-proclaimed "Mad Potter of Biloxi". The museum is named for ceramic artist George E. Ohr (1857–1918) ...
campus in Biloxi, Mississippi (2010) File:Dr Chau Chak Wing Building from The Goods Line (27438092220).jpg, Dr Chau Chak Wing Building in
Sydney, Australia Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and List of cities in Oceania by population, Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metro ...
(2014) File:Biomuseo panama.jpg,
Biomuseo Biomuseo is a museum focused on the natural history of Panama, whose isthmus was formed very recently in geologic time, with major impact on the ecology of the Western Hemisphere. Located on the Amador Causeway in Panama City, Panama, it was desig ...
in Panama City (2014) File:Frank Gehry - David Cabin, Idyllwild CA. 1957.jpg, David Cabin - Idyllwild CA (1957)


Bilbao effect

After the phenomenal success of Gehry's design for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, critics began referring to the economic and cultural revitalization of cities through iconic, innovative architecture as the "Bilbao effect". In the first 12 months after the museum was opened, an estimated US$160 million were added to the Basque economy. Indeed, over $3.5 billion have been added to the Basque economy since the building opened. In subsequent years there have been many attempts to replicate this effect through large-scale eye-catching architectural commissions that have been both successful and unsuccessful, such as
Daniel Libeskind Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design a ...
's expansion of the Denver Art Museum and buildings by Gehry himself, such as the almost universally well-received Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the more controversial Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. Though some link the concept of the Bilbao effect to the notion of starchitecture, Gehry has consistently rejected the label of a
starchitect Starchitect is a portmanteau used to describe architects whose celebrity and critical acclaim have transformed them into idols of the architecture world and may even have given them some degree of fame among the general public. Celebrity status is ...
.


Criticism

Though much of Gehry's work has been well-received, its reception was not always positive. Art historian
Hal Foster Harold Rudolf Foster, FRSA (August 16, 1892 – July 25, 1982) was a Canadian-American comic strip artist and writer best known as the creator of the comic strip ''Prince Valiant''. His drawing style is noted for its high level of draftsmanship a ...
reads Gehry's architecture as, primarily, in the service of corporate branding. Criticism of his work includes complaints over
design flaws A product defect is any characteristic of a Product (business), product which hinders its usability for the purpose for which it was Product design, designed and Manufacturing, manufactured. Product defects arise most prominently in legal contexts ...
that the buildings waste structural resources by creating functionless forms, do not seem to belong in their surroundings or enhance the public context of their locations, and are apparently designed without taking into account the local climate. Moreover, socialist magazine ''
Jacobin , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...
'' pointed out that Gehry's work can be summed up as architecture for the super-wealthy, in the sense that it is expensive, not resourceful, and does not serve the interests of the overwhelming majority. The article criticized Gehry's statement, "In the world we live in, 98 percent of what gets built and designed today is pure shit."


Other aspects of career


Academia

In January 2011, Gehry joined the University of Southern California (USC) faculty, as the Judge Widney Professor of Architecture. He has since continued in this role at his alma mater. He has also held teaching positions at Harvard University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Toronto, Columbia University, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and at Yale University, where he still teaches as of 2017. Though he is often referred to as a "
starchitect Starchitect is a portmanteau used to describe architects whose celebrity and critical acclaim have transformed them into idols of the architecture world and may even have given them some degree of fame among the general public. Celebrity status is ...
", he has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the term, insisting he is only an architect. Steve Sample,
President of the University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8. ...
, told Gehry that "...After
George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...
, you are our most prominent graduate". , Gehry has received over a dozen honorary university degrees (see #Honorary doctorates). In February 2017, MasterClass announced an online architecture course taught by Gehry that was released that July.


Exhibition design

Gehry has been involved in exhibition designs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art dating back to the 1960s. In 1965, Gehry designed the exhibition display for the "Art Treasures of Japan" exhibition at the LACMA. This was followed soon after by the exhibition design for the "Assyrian Reliefs" show in 1966 and the "Billy Al Bengston Retrospective" in 1968. The LACMA then had Gehry design the installation for the "Treasures of Tutankhamen" exhibition in 1978 followed by the "Avant-Garde in Russia 1910–1930" exhibition in 1980. The subsequent year, Gehry designed the exhibition for "Seventeen Artists in the '60s" at the LACMA, followed soon after by the "German Expressionist Sculpture Exhibition" in 1983. In 1991–92, Gehry designed the installation of the landmark exhibition "Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany", which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and traveled to the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and the Altes Museum in Berlin. Gehry was asked to design an exhibition on the work of Alexander Calder at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Resnick Pavilion, again invited by the museum's curator Stephanie Barron. The exhibition began on November 24, 2013, and ran through July 27, 2014. In addition to his long-standing involvement with exhibition design at the LACMA, Gehry has also designed numerous exhibition installations with other institutions. In 1998, "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibition opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with its installation designed by Gehry. This exhibition subsequently traveled to the
Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...
in Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the
Guggenheim Las Vegas The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preserva ...
. In 2014, he curated an exhibition of photography by his close friend and businessman Peter Arnell that ran from March 5 through April 1 at Milk Studios Gallery in Los Angeles.


Stage design

In 1983, Gehry created the stage design for
Lucinda Childs Lucinda Childs (born June 26, 1940) is an American postmodern dancer/ choreographer and actress. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest mov ...
' dance ''Available Light'', set to music by John Adams. It premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles at the "Temporary Contemporary", and was subsequently seen at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...
Opera House in New York City and the
Theatre de la Ville Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...
in Paris. The set consisted of two levels angled in relation to each other, with a chain-link backdrop. The piece was revived in 2015, and was performed, among other places, in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where it was presented by FringeArts, which commissioned the revival. In 2012, Gehry designed the set for the
Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at th ...
's opera production of ''
Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...
'', performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In April 2014, Gehry designed a set for an "exploration of the life and career of
Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...
" by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which was performed in November of that year.


Other designs

In addition to architecture, Gehry has made a line of furniture, jewelry for Tiffany & Co., various household items, sculptures, and even a glass bottle for Wyborowa Vodka. His first line of furniture, produced from 1969 to 1973, was called "
Easy Edges Easy Edges is the name given to a series of furniture designs by Frank Gehry from 1969 to 1973. These early designs were partially responsible for Gehry's rise to public recognition in the early 1970s. After discovering that corrugated cardboard ...
", constructed out of cardboard. Another line of furniture released in the spring of 1992 is " Bentwood Furniture". Each piece is named after a different hockey term. He was first introduced to making furniture in 1954 while serving in the U.S. Army, where he designed furniture for the enlisted soldiers. In many of his designs, Gehry is inspired by fish. "It was by accident I got into the fish image", claimed Gehry. One thing that sparked his interest in fish was the fact that his colleagues were recreating Greek temples. He said, "Three hundred million years before man was fish....if you gotta go back, and you're insecure about going forward...go back three hundred million years ago. Why are you stopping at the Greeks? So, I started drawing fish in my sketchbook, and then I started to realize that there was something in it." As a result of his fascination, the first Fish Lamps were fabricated between 1984 and 1986. They employed wire armatures molded into fish shapes, onto which shards of plastic laminate ColorCore are individually glued. Since the creation of the first lamp in 1984, the fish has become a recurrent motif in Gehry's work, most notably in the ''Fish Sculpture'' at
La Vila Olímpica del Poblenou La Vila Olímpica del Poblenou or La Villa Olímpica (The Olympic Village of Poblenou) is a neighborhood in the Sant Martí district of Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain). It was constructed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the 1992 Summer Olympi ...
in Barcelona (1989–92) and ''Standing Glass Fish'' for the
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is an park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States. It is located near the Walker Art Center, which operates it in coordination with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. It reopened June 10, 2017 af ...
(1986). Gehry has previously collaborated with luxury jewelry company Tiffany & Co., creating six distinct jewelry collections: the Orchid, Fish, Torque, Equus, Axis, and Fold collections. In addition to jewelry, Gehry designed other items, including a distinctive collector's chess set and a series of tableware items, including vases, cups, and bowls for the company. In 2004, Gehry designed the official trophy for the World Cup of Hockey. He redesigned the trophy for the next tournament in 2016. He has collaborated with American furniture manufacturer Emeco on designs such as the 2004 "Superlight" chair. In 2014, Gehry was one of the six "iconoclasts" selected by French fashion house Louis Vuitton to design a piece using their iconic monogram pattern as part of their "Celebrating Monogram" campaign. In 2015, Gehry designed his first yacht. In 2020, Gehry designed a limited edition bottle of Hennessy cognac.


Software development

Gehry's firm was responsible for innovation in architectural software. His firm spun off another firm called Gehry Technologies that was established in 2002. In 2005, Gehry Technologies began a partnership with Dassault Systèmes to bring innovations from the aerospace and manufacturing world to AEC and developed
Digital Project Digital Project is a computer-aided design (CAD) software application based on CATIA V5 and developed by Gehry Technologies, a technology company owned by the architect Frank Gehry. Among the changes made by Gehry Technologies to CATIA is a ne ...
software, as well as GTeam software. In 2014, Gehry Technologies was acquired by software company Trimble Navigation. Its client list includes Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and Zaha Hadid.


Personal life

In 1954, Gehry changed his surname from Goldberg to Gehry, after his then-wife Anita expressed concern about anti-Semitism. Having grown up in Canada, Gehry is an avid fan of ice hockey. He began a hockey league, FOG (for Frank Owen Gehry) in his office, though he no longer plays with them.Goldberger (2015) In 2004, he designed the trophy for the World Cup of Hockey. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he also remains a citizen of Canada. He lives in Santa Monica, California, and continues to practice out of Los Angeles. Gehry is known for his sometimes cantankerous personality. During a trip to
Oviedo, Spain Oviedo (; ast, Uviéu ) is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain and the administrative and commercial centre of the region. It is also the name of the municipality that contains the city. Oviedo is located ap ...
to accept the Prince of Asturias Award in October 2014, he received a significant amount of attention, both positive and negative, for publicly flipping off a reporter at a press conference who accused him of being a "showy" architect. Gehry is a member of the California Yacht Club in
Marina Del Rey Marina del Rey (Spanish for "Marina of the King") is an unincorporated seaside community in Los Angeles County, California, with an eponymous harbor that is a major boating and water recreation destination of the greater Los Angeles area. The p ...
, and enjoys sailing with his fiberglass-hulled yacht, ''Foggy''. He also serves on the leadership council of The New York Stem Cell Foundation.


In popular culture

In 2004, Gehry voiced himself on the children's TV show '' Arthur'', where he helped Arthur and his friends design a new treehouse. He also voiced himself in a 2005 episode of '' The Simpsons,'' "
The Seven-Beer Snitch "The Seven-Beer Snitch" is the fourteenth episode of the sixteenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 3, 2005. Plot The Simpsons go to Shelbyville ...
", where he designs a concert hall for the fictional city of Springfield. He has since said he regrets the appearance, as it included a joke about his design technique that has led people to misunderstand his architectural process. In 2006, filmmaker
Sydney Pollack Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack directed more than 20 films and 10 television shows, acted in over 30 movies or shows and produced over 44 films. For his film ''Out ...
made a documentary about Gehry's work, '' Sketches of Frank Gehry,'' which followed Gehry over five years and painted a positive portrait of his character; it was well-received critically. In 2009, architecture-inspired ice cream sandwich company
Coolhaus Coolhaus is an American ice cream company based in Los Angeles, California, founded in 2009 by two women named Natasha Case and Freya Estreller. Coolhaus is an artisan ice cream brand known for combining Food and Architecture. The name Coolhaus, i ...
named a cookie and ice cream combination after Gehry. Dubbed the "Frank Behry", it features Strawberries & Cream
gelato Gelato (; ) is the common word in Italian for all kinds of ice cream. In English, it specifically refers to a frozen dessert of Italian origin. Artisanal gelato in Italy generally contains 6%–9% butterfat, which is lower than other styles o ...
and
snickerdoodle A snickerdoodle is a type of cookie made with flour, fat, sugar, and salt, and rolled in cinnamon sugar. Eggs may also sometimes be used as an ingredient, with cream of tartar and baking soda added to leaven the dough. Snickerdoodles are characte ...
cookies.


Works


Exhibitions

In October 2014, the first major European exhibition of Gehry's work debuted at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Other museums and major galleries that have held exhibitions on Gehry's architecture and design include the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1983; and the Walker Art Center in 1986, whose exhibition then traveled to the Toronto Harbourfront Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the LACMA and the Whitney Museum. Museums with exhibitions on Gehry's work have included the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
, the Museum of Modern Art (1992), the Gagosian Gallery (1984, 1992 and 1993), the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
(2001), the Guggenheim Bilbao (2002), the Jewish Museum in Manhattan (2010), and the
Milan Triennale The ''Milan Triennial'' (Triennale di Milano) is an art and design exhibition that takes place every three years at the Triennale di Milano Museum in Milan, Italy. History The exhibition was originally established in 1923 as a biennial architect ...
(first in
1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...
, then in 2010 with an exhibition entitled "Frank Gehry from 1997"), and LACMA (2015). Gehry participated in the 1980 Venice Biennale's ''La Strada Novissima'' installation. He also contributed to the 1985 Venice Biennale with an installation and performance named ''Il Corso del Coltello,'' in collaboration with Claes Oldenburg. His projects were featured in the 1996 event, and contributed to the 2008 event with the installation ''Ungapatchket''. In October 2015, 21 21 Design Sight in Tokyo held the exhibition ''Frank Gehry. I Have An Idea'', curated by Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane. In 2021, the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills held ''Spinning Tales'', an exhibition of new fish sculptures by Gehry.


Awards and honors

* 1987: Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Letters * 1988: Elected into the National Academy of Design * 1989:
Pritzker Architecture Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...
* 1992: Praemium Imperiale * 1994:
The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize or Gish Prize is given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." It is among the most prestigious and on ...
* 1995: American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award * 1998:
National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
* 1998: Gold Medal Award, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada * 1999: AIA Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects * 2000: Cooper–Hewitt
National Design Award The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are funded and awarded by Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New Y ...
Lifetime Achievement * 2002: Companion of the Order of Canada * 2004: Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service * 2006: Inductee,
California Hall of Fame The California Hall of Fame honors individuals and families who embody California's innovative spirit and have made their mark on history. The hall and its exhibits are housed in The California Museum in Sacramento. The hall of fame was conceived ...
* 2007:
Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology The Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology is awarded annually by the National Building Museum to recognize outstanding leadership and innovation in the field of construction methods and processes, including engineering des ...
from the
National Building Museum The National Building Museum is located at 401 F Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning". It was created by an act of Congress in 1980, and is a private Non-profit org ...
(on behalf of Gehry Partners and Gehry Technologies) * 2009: Order of Charlemagne * 2012:
Twenty-five Year Award The Twenty-five Year Award is an architecture prize awarded each year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to "a building that has set a precedent for the last 25 to 35 years and continues to set standards of excellence for its architect ...
, American Institute of Architects * 2014: Prince of Asturias Award * 2014: Commandeur of the Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur, France * 2015: J. Paul Getty Medal * 2016: Harvard Arts Medal * 2016: Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts, Foundation for Arts and Preservation in Embassies * 2016: Presidential Medal of Freedom * 2018: Neutra Medal * 2019: Inductee, Canada's Walk of Fame *2020:
Paez Medal of Art The Paez Medal of Arts is a decoration awarded by The Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts (VAEA) that is presented once a year to an individual or group that has had an impact and contributed to excellence, growth, support and the prolifera ...
, New York City (VAEA). Gehry was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1974, and he has received many national, regional and local AIA awards. He is a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council and serves on the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.


Honorary doctorates

* 1987: California Institute of the Arts * 1987: Rhode Island School of Design * 1989: Otis College of Art and Design * 1989:
Technical University of Nova Scotia The Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS) was a Canadian university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia. TUNS was officially founded as the Nova Scotia Technical College on 25 April 1907. On 1 April 1997 it was merged into Dalhousie University ...
* 1993:
Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...
* 1995: Whittier College * 1996:
Southern California Institute of Architecture Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is a private architecture school in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1972, SCI-Arc was initially regarded as both institutionally and artistically avant-garde and more adventurous than t ...
* 1998: University of Toronto * 2000: Harvard University * 2000: University of Edinburgh * 2000: University of Southern California * 2000: Yale University * 2002:
City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...
* 2004: School of the Art Institute of Chicago * 2013:
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...
* 2013: Princeton University * 2014: Juilliard School * 2015: University of Technology Sydney * 2017: University of Oxford


See also

* Contemporary architecture *
Organization of the artist The organization of the artist is a method used by architect Frank Gehry that places the artist in control of the design throughout a building construction and deliberately eliminates the influence of politicians and business people on design. Ge ...
* Thin-shell structure


References

Notes


Bibliography

* * * * Rattenbury, Kester (2006) ''Architects Today'' Laurence King Publishers * Staff (1995
"Frank Gehry 1991-1995"
''
El Croquis ''El Croquis'' (Spanish; translates to English as "The Sketch") is one of the most prestigious architectural magazines in the world. The leading international architects choose it as their showcase. The volumes dedicated to established Pritzker Pr ...
''


Further reading

* . * * * *


External links


Gehry Partners, LLP
Gehry's architecture firm
Gehry Technologies, Inc.
Gehry's technology firm * * * * *
Fish Forms: Lamps by Frank Gehry Exhibition (2010)
at The
Jewish Museum (New York) The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unite ...

STORIES OF HOUSES: Frank Gehry's House in California





Frank Gehry architecture on Google Maps
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gehry, Frank 1929 births Architects from Los Angeles Art in Greater Los Angeles 20th-century Canadian architects Canadian furniture designers Canadian emigrants to the United States Canadian male voice actors Canadian Jews Canadian people of Polish-Jewish descent Columbia University faculty Companions of the Order of Canada Deconstructivism Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni Jewish architects Jewish American artists Living people Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts National Design Award winners Organic architecture People from Toronto Postmodern architects Pritzker Architecture Prize winners Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal United States Army soldiers United States National Medal of Arts recipients USC School of Architecture alumni Wolf Prize in Arts laureates Yale School of Architecture faculty People associated with the Philadelphia Museum of Art Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Honorary Members of the Royal Academy American people of Polish-Jewish descent 20th-century American architects 21st-century American architects 21st-century Canadian architects American furniture designers American male voice actors 21st-century American Jews Recipients of the AIA Gold Medal