An architect who combines artistry, imagination, architecture, function and challenges accepted design paradigms. A Canadian who made his home in California, this mainstream challenger continues to make audacious architectural statements worldwide.
Gehry says an architect “is given a program, budget, place and schedule and sometimes the end product rises to art.” It is art that this Pritzker laureate creates without a doubt. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, initiated his luminary status, intriguing the world with its wavy structures and incongruous materials. He designed the global headquarters for Facebook, The Experience Music Project in Seattle, which was inspired by a Stratocaster guitar and the Los Angeles Chiat/Day advertising agency building which among other novelties has a pair of binoculars as the entrance to the parking garage, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Gehry does not make buildings – he creates landmarks. They are innovative structures with a presence that honor the space as well as the function of the building; humanistic places that people like to be in. People love to be in the Walt Disney Concert Hall with its signature Gehry curving walls and acoustically-perfect, hardwood furnished interiors.
“I approach each building as a sculptural object, a spatial container, a space with light and air, a response to context and appropriateness of feeling and spirit. To this container, this sculpture, the user brings his baggage, his program, and interacts with it to accommodate his needs. If he can’t do that, I’ve failed,” declares Gehry.
“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.””
– FRANK GEHRY
