Frank Gehry Overview

According to Frank Gehry, architecture is intimately linked with social structure and purpose. He insists that his buildings address the context and culture of their particular sites, as well as provide a comfortable, stimulating experience to their occupants. Gehry also believes... [more]

According to Frank Gehry, architecture is intimately linked with social structure and purpose. He insists that his buildings address the context and culture of their particular sites, as well as provide a comfortable, stimulating experience to their occupants. Gehry also believes that architecture is primarily an aesthetic endeavor -- a question of the qualities of material and form -- which means that his risks revolve around the architectural possibilities of unexplored shapes and untried materials. He further argues that architecture must be a progressive, rather than nostalgic, force which is engaged both in the present and the future. For Gehry, then, imitating the styles of the past is no less than a failure of the creative spirit. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger attests to the success of Gehry's mission, writing in the New York Times that the architect's "buildings are powerful essays in geometric form and materials, and from an aesthetic standpoint they are among the most profound and brilliant works of architecture of our time." Gehry's work is characteristic of West Coast architecture in its gleeful flaunting of established rules. And though he claims not to be a Deconstructionist, he has often given his buildings an incomplete look -- exposed rafters, studs, plywood, corrugated steel, wire fencing mesh, and idiosyncratically arranged curves and lines -- to achieve a sense of dislocation. With an architectural career that spans over four decades, he is the design principal for the firm of Frank O. Gehry and Associates, Inc., which he established in 1962. His work can be seen in North America, Asia, and Europe. [show less]