F
rank Gehry, is among the most acclaimed architects of the 20th century, and is known for his use of bold, postmodern shapes and
360 Newbury Street Boston Massachusetts 2005 David Cabin Idyllwild California 1957 Kline Residence Bel Air California 1963 Park West Apartments IrvineCalifornia 1970 Ronald Davis Studio & Residence Malibu California 1972 Exhibit Center, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Rouse Company Headquarters, and Fire Station Columbia Maryland 1974 Concord Pavilion Concord California 1975 Harper House Baltimore Maryland 1977 Gehry Residence Santa Monica California 1978 Loyola Law School (various buildings) Los Angeles California 1978-2002 Spiller House Venice California 1980 Santa Monica Place Santa Monica California 1980 Cabrillo Marine Aquarium San Pedro California 1981G California Aerospace Museum, California Museum of Science and Industry Los Angeles California 1984 Edgemar Retail Complex Santa Monica California 1984 Norton House Venice California 1984 Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood Regional Library Hollywood California 1985 Information and Computer Science (ICS)/Engineering Research Facility (ICS/ERF) University of California, Irvine California 1986 Sirmai-Peterson House Thousand Oaks California 1984-86
unusual fabrications. He has done works of Modern design, Postmodernism, Deconstructivism and reconstructivism, although mainly known for his postmodern architecture. Winton Guest House Owatonna Minnesota 1987 Yale Psychiatric Institute Yale University, New Haven Connecticut 1989 Rockwell and Marna Schnabel House Brentwood California 1986-89 Herman Miller factory (currently William Jessup University) Rocklin California 1987-89 Vitra Design Museum Weil am Rhein Germany 1989 Rockwell Engineering Center and McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium University of California, Irvine California 1990 Chiat/Day Building Venice California 1991 Artists’ Studios Santa Monica California 1991 Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories University of Iowa, Iowa City Iowa 1992 Disney Village Disneyland Paris, Marne-la-Vallée France 1992 Olympic Fish Olympic Village, Barcelona Spain1992 Frederick Weisman Museum of Art University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Minnesota 1993 Center for the Visual Arts Toledo Ohio 1993 Cinémathèque Française Paris France 1994 Vitra International Headquarters Basel Switzerland 1994 Siedlung Goldstein Frankfurt Germany 1994 Energie Forum Innovation Bad Oeynhausen Germany 1995 Anaheim Ice Anaheim California 1995 Team Disney Anaheim Anaheim California 1996 Dancing House Prague Czech Republic 1996 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Bilbao Spain1997 Der Neue Zollhof Düsseldorf Germany 1999 University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Ohio 1999 Condé Nast Publishing Headquarters Cafeteria Times Square, New York City New York 2000 DZ Bank building Pariser Platz, Berlin Germany 2000 Museum of Pop Culture Seattle Washington 2000 Gehry Tower Hanover Germany 2001 Issey Miyake flagship store Manhattan New York 2001 Weatherhead School of Management Peter B. Lewis building Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio 2002 Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson New York 2003 Maggie’s Dundee, Ninewells Hospital Dundee Scotland 2003 Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles California 2003 Ray and Maria Stata Center Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Massachusetts 2004 Jay Pritzker Pavilion Millennium Park, Chicago Illinois 2004 BP Pedestrian Bridge Millennium Park, Chicago Illinois 2004 MARTa Herford Herford Germany 2005 Herford MARTa 88.jpg IAC/InterActiveCorp West Coast Headquarters West Hollywood California 2005 Marqués de Riscal Hotel Elciego Spain2006 IAC Building Chelsea, Manhattan New York 2007 Mariza show stage, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles California 2007 Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto Ontario 2008 Peter B. Lewis Library Princeton University, Princeton New Jersey 2008 Serpentine Gallery 2008 Summer Pavilion London England 2008 Novartis Pharma A.G. Campus Basel Switzerland 2009 Danish Cancer Society Counseling Center Aarhus Denmark 2009 Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health Las Vegas Nevada 2010 Ohr-O’Keefe Museum Of Art Biloxi Mississippi 2010 New World Center Miami Beach Florida 2011 New York by Gehry at Eight Spruce Street Manhattan New York 2011 Opus Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong 2011 Pershing Square Signature Center Manhattan New York 2012 Duplex Residence New Orleans Louisiana 2012 Warming Hut Winnipeg Canada 2012 Maggie’s Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong 2013 Biomuseo Panama City Panama 2014 Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation Paris France 2014
Although Gehry exercises vast creativity among his designs, there are some defining features that make his architecture iconic. His style is considered deconstructivist, a movement in postmodern architecture where elements of the design appear to be fragmented; they are often described as chaotic or disjointed. Gehry will primarily use corrugated metals which give his look an unfinished appearance. This has its fair share of critics; however, his long-standing commitment to this material has created a consistent aesthetic throughout the years. The awardwinning architect has spent more than a half-century disrupting the very meaning of design within architecture. From the iconic Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Gehry has proven time and again the force that’s produced when whimsical design is done masterfully. Gehry’s designs come from his irregular project process. Gehry focuses on the building by translating the drawing into a physical model. This crucial step relates the drawing to the logic of construction missing in the sequence. The model, existing in space, is less abstract than the drawing and is made from actual materials. This might result in a building that looks like a model instead of a drawing, were it not for Gehry;s unwavering attention to the instrumental building virtual models in a computer which contributes to Gehry’s skepticism to the adaptation of digital tools. You could think of Gehry’s buildings as representing a kind of “action architecture,” following Harold Rosenberg’s famous description of Kline, Pollack, and Willem de Kooning as “action painters,” but while Gehry’s finished buildings often felt dynamic, they came into being through a very different process than that of the action painters, for whom Rosenberg’s term was intended to describe their intense engagement with the canvas itself. Although he did not like to use a computer himself, Gehry prided himself on being a technological innovator as well as a maker of unusual forms, and he saw that digital technology could go beyond its most common use in architects offices, which was to make the production of architectural drawings more efficient. Gehry’s powerful shapes seemed to capture the imagination of everyone, not just the architectural world. Although Gehry exercises vast creativity among his designs, there are some defining features that make his architecture iconic. His style is considered deconstructivist, a movement in postmodern architecture where elements of the design appear to be fragmented; they are often described as chaotic or disjointed. Gehry will primarily use corrugated metals which give his look an unfinished appearance.This has its fair share of critics; however, his long-standing commitment to this material has created a consistent aesthetic throughout the years. The award-winning architect has spent more than a half-century disrupting the very meaning of design within architecture. From the iconic Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Gehry has proven time and again the force that’s produced when whimsical design is done masterfully. Gehry’s designs come from his irregular project process.
Frank Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Canada. The Goldberg family was Polish and Jewish. Gehry relocated to Los Angeles in 1949, holding a variety of jobs while attending college. He would eventually graduate from the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture. It was during his time that he changed his Goldberg surname to Gehry, in an effort to preclude anti-Semitism. In 1950 Frank’s Grandmother Leah died in Toronto of a stroke. Frank was devastated, he thought of her not only as a wise elder, but as the person in his family who understood him the most. Despite his closeness to his grandmother, he could not return to Canada for her funeral. It fell to Frank to stay home and keep an eye on his father. Thelma, Frank’s mother, went back to Toronto for Leah’s funeral. After the funeral, for several weeks Thelma was detained in Canada, unable to reenter the United States because she lacked an american passport. Frank and Irving (his father), fearing that Thelma might never be able to return, contacted their local congresswoman for assistance. Helen Gahagan Douglas was able to bring Frank’s mother back by confirming Thelma’s visa. After this close call, the Goldberg family were back on their feet, Thelma got a promotion at her job and they were able to move out of their apartment in Burlington and move to California. In 1956, Gehry moved to Massachusetts with his wife, Anita Snyder, to enroll at the Harvard Graduate School of
Design. He later dropped out of Harvard and divorced his wife, with whom he had two daughters. In 1975, Gehry married Berta Isabel Aguilera, and had two more children. After leaving Harvard, Frank Gehry returned to California, making a name for himself with the launch of his “Easy Edges” cardboard furniture line. Gehry remodeled a home for his family in Santa Monica with the money earned from Easy Edges.
Gehry focuses on the building by translating the drawing into a physical model. This crucial step relates the drawing to the logic of construction missing in the sequence. The model, existing in space, is less abstract than the drawing and is made from actual materials. This might result in a building that looks like a model instead of a drawing, were it not for Gehry;s unwavering attention to the instrumental role of both drawing and modeling. This is lost when building virtual models in a computer which contributes to Gehry’s skepticism to the adaptation of digital tools. You could think of Gehry’s buildings as representing a kind of “action architecture,” following Harold Rosenberg’s famous description of Kline, Pollack, and Willem de Kooning as “action painters,”but while Gehry’s finished buildings often felt dynamic, they came into being through a very different process than that of the action painters, for whom Rosenberg’s term was intended to describe their intense engagement