the architecture of frank gehry
the life 1947
1929
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Frank Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Canada. Creative at a young age, Frank got his start building imaginary homes and cities from items found in his grandfather’s hardware store. This interest in unconventional building materials would come to characterize Gehry’s architectural work. Gehry relocated to Los Angeles in 1947, holding a variety of jobs while attending college. Gehry eventually graduated at the top of his class with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from University of Southern California in 1954. It was during this period that the architect changed his Goldberg surname to Gehry, in an effort to preclude anti-Semitism. In 1956, Gehry moved to Massa-
chusetts and enrolled at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Underwhelmed and disheartened, he eventually dropped out of school, returned to California, and made a name for himself with his “Easy Edges” cardboard furniture line, in production from 1969-1973. However, Gehry was still interested in building, remodeling his family home in Santa Monica with the money earned from Easy Edges. The remodel involved surrounding the existing bungalow with corrugated steel and chain-link fence and effectively splitting the house open with an angled skylight. Although many of his neighbors disapproved of the unconventional design, it was this structure that caught the attention of the architectural world, launching his groundbreaking career.
Moves to Los Angeles at age 18.
& work of frank gehry part 1: the beginning
1954
Receives Bachelor of Architecture degree from
1954
the University of Southern California and goes to
Elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects.
work for Victor Gruen Associates.
1955
Studies city planning at Harvard University.
1969
Launches cardboard furniture line “Easy Edges.�
1975
Completes the Ghery Residence, Santa Monica, California (above).
part 2: deconstructivism and style Though the architect himself has never championed the term, much of Gehry’s work falls within the style of Deconstructivism, which is often referred to as post-structuralist in nature for its ability to go beyond current modalities of structural definition. Deconstructivism departs from modernism in its inherent criticism of culturally inherent givens such as societal goals and functional necessity. Because of this, structures of this style are not required to reflect specific social or universal ideas such as speed or universality of form, and they do not reflect a belief that form follows function. Gehry is sometimes associated with what is known as the “Los Angeles School” or the “Santa Monica School” of architecture. This group is unified more by the area’s tendency to produce
1977
a group of the most influential postmodern architects, Gehry included, than by a unifying principle or theory. Gehry’s architecture in particular finds root in the city of Los Angeles. He escapes the monumental and bears with the mark, the stigma of the temporary and the ephemeral. Gehry is known for his choice of unusual materials as well as his architectural philosophy. The use of materials such as corrugated metal leads some of his designs toward what seems to be an unfinished, even crude, style. Though he has been called “the apostle of chain-link fencing and corrugated metal siding,” his work shows a remarkable sophistication and classical edge. Gehry’s architecture is an antithesis, a mix of light and steel, of whimsy and structure.
1985
Received the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the
Building, an office complex in Venice, California.
American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Designs the Chiat/Day
1980
Opening of Santa Monica Place, a shopping mall in Santa Monica, California.
1989 the vitra design museum expressionism. This subverts the functional aspects
titanium-zinc alloy. This building also marks the first
Gehry’s design is found in the Vitra Design Museum
An example of the deconstructivist complexity of
of modernist simplicity while taking modernism, par-
appearance of curved forms, which break up his more
in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany.
ticularly the international style of which the building’s
usual angular shapes. The result is a dynamically pow-
white stucco skin is reminiscent, as a starting point.
erful interplay of elements which would otherwise
The structure takes the typical unadorned white cube of modernist art galleries and deconstructs it, using geometries reminiscent of cubism and abstract
Gehry did not opt for his usual mix of materials, but limited himself to white plaster and a
seem to be discordant. (Museum pictured above).
part 3: major works
1994
Becomes the first recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award for lifetime contribution to the arts.
1989
Awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, honoring significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.
1993
Designs the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota in Menneapolis, Minnesota and the University of Toledo Center for the Visual Arts in Toledo, Ohio.
“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.�
1995
Designs the Dancing House, an apartment building in Prague, Czech Republic (left).
The Dancing House, originally nicknamed “Fred and Ginger” after the legendary dancing duo, was a collaboration between Gehry and Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunic. It sits on a vacant riverfront property in Prague, standing out among the surrounding Baroque, Gothic, and Art Nouveau buildings. Its site was the location of a house destroyed by the U.S. bombing of Prague in 1945. The plot and structure lay decrepit until 1960 when the area was cleared. In 1992, Gehry and Milunic began developing Milunic’s original idea of a building consisting of two parts, one static and one dynamic, which were to symbolize the transition of Czechoslovakia from a communist regime to a parliamentary democracy. Construction on the building was completed in 1995. The first of the Dancing House’s
central bodies is a tower of glass close to half height and supported by curved pillars. The second runs parallel to the river and is characterized by the moldings that follow a wavy motion distributed through the windows so that they are not aligned. The “dancing” shape of the building is supported by 99 concrete panels, each a different shape and dimension. On top of the building is a large twisted metal structure nicknamed “Medusa.” The top floor of the building is open to the public and houses Celeste Restaurant and Bar, a French restaurant that offers diners panoramic views of Prague. The general shape of the building is now featured on a gold 2,000 Czech koruna coin, completing a series called “Ten Centuries of Architecture.”
1997
Designs the Guggenheim Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain.
With its architect encouraged to create something daring and innovative, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has been hailed as a signal moment in the architectural culture. It is most frequently named as one of the most important works completed since 1980 in a survey among architecture experts. The curves on the exterior of the building, intentionally random, are
designed to catch the light. The interior is designed around a large light-filled atrium with views of Bilbao’s estuary and the surrounding hills of the Basque country. The museum is seamlessly integrated into the urban context, unfolding its interconnecting shapes of stone, glass, and titanium along the Nervion River in the industrial heart of the city.
2004
Receives the National Medal of Arts. Is the first recipient of the Friedrich Kiesler Prize.
2003
Designs the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Ange-
2004
Designs the trophy for the World Cup of Hockey.
les, California (opposite).
In 1988, Frank Gehry was selected from among several candidates in a design competition for the Walt Disney Concert Hall to be built in Los Angeles. Though the project was put on hold for a few years during the 1990s, Gehry’s design was eventually realized and revealed to the public in 2003. The interior of the concert hall was designed as a single volume, with orchestra and audience occupying the same space. Seats are located on each side of the stage, providing some audience members with distant views of the performers’ sheet music. The steel roof structure spans the entire space, eliminating the need for interior columns. The organ stans at the front of the hall, a boquet of 6,134 curved pipes extending nearly to the ceiling. It is the
unique result of a collaboration between Gehry and Manuel J. Rosales, a Los Angeles-based organ designer. Gehry also worked with Yasuhisa Toyota, an acoustical consultant, to hone the hall’s sound through spatial and material means. The result is a space both visually and acoustically enlightening. The reflective, stainless steel surface engages light as an architectural medium. The facade’s individual panels and curves are articulated in daylight and colored by the lights of the city after dark. Thin metal panels allowed for adventurous curvature, while glass fissures in the facade bring light into the lobby and pre-concert room, reading as a grand entryway through an otherwise opaque building.
2011
Designs the Opus Hong Kong Tower in Hong Kong, China.
2008
Designs the renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, Canada.
2011
Designs the skyscraper at 8 Spruce Street, New York City, New York (above).
“I am obsessed with myself as an archite with contradiction, d
As Gehry achieved celebrity status, his work took on a grander scale. His high-concept buildings, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Dancing House in Prague, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, have become tourist attractions. In 2011, Gehry returned to his roots as a residential designer, unveiling his first skyscraper, 8 Spruce Street in New York City, and the Opus Hong Kong tower in China. The 76-story skyscraper at 8 Spruce Street, currently marketed as New York by Gehry, is the 12th tallest residential tower in the world and the
second tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. It contains a public elementary school owned by the Department of Education below 898 residential rental units. Gehry himself calls the building his “love letter to New York City.” It does seem to be lovingly designed, with its endlessly shifting surfaces, an antithetical juxtaposition of form and structure and motion, suggesting the movement of a waterfall or drapery. Gehry replaces the anonymity of the assembly line with an architecture conveying the infinite variety of urban life, as he has throughout his carreer.
architecture. It is true, I am restless, trying to find ect and how best to contribute in this world filled isparity and inequality, even passion & opportunity.”
Frank Gehry’s buildings displayed a penchant for whimsy and playfulness previously unknown in serious architecture. Most distinctive of all was his ability to explode familiar geometric volumes and reassemble them in original new forms of unprecedented complexity, a practice the critics dubbed “deconstructivism.”
Booklet by Kelly Cunningham for Antithesis: The Architecture of Frank Gehry Front Cover: Interior of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas, Nevada 2010 Back Cover: Interior of the renovated Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada 2008