Working World

In Sydney Pollack’s 2006 documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry, artist Ed Ruscha says Gehry “mixes the ‘free-wheelingness’ of art with something that is really concrete and unforgiving, which is the laws of physics…and [a building] has got to stand.”

Gehry has been widely honored, yet his style is controversial and by no means universally loved. The radical remodel of his own house in Venice, Calif. — where he built a cubist shell of metal and glass around a 1920s beach bungalow — got mixed reviews from the neighbors. But he and his wife raised a family there and have lived in the house for 30 years.

His highly unconventional architecture includes the fantastical Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which the museum’s director likened to an alien spaceship; the whimsical Dancing House in Prague; and our own Walt Disney Concert Hall, located downtown.

His approach is artistic and sculptural: He starts out sketching shapes, ignoring all the rules about what architecture is “supposed” to look like, and uses unconventional materials such as chain link fencing and corrugated metal siding to “humanize” buildings.

Born Ephraim Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada — he changed his name to Frank Gehry at the insistence of his first wife — Gehry’s artistic temperament was encouraged from the time he was young, using wood shapes and cuttings to build “cities” with his grandmother and drawing with his father, Irving.

In the late 1940s, financial and health problems led Irving to move the family to Los Angeles, and Frank, being just out of high school, got a job driving a truck by day and took art classes by night. A ceramics teacher encouraged him to enroll in USC’s School of Architecture, and he graduated in 1954.

Gehry served in the U.S. Army, Special Services Division, for one year, creating furniture for the enlisted soldiers. After being discharged from the military he studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, then returned to L.A. to work with established architectural firms before opening his own firm in 1962.

The projects in his early career, such as Santa Monica Place, were along fairly traditional modernist lines. He designed the shopping mall around the same time he was experimenting with his own home in Venice, and shortly thereafter decided to do only projects that gave him creative freedom.

He began getting commissions internationally, and by the late ’80s he was receiving significant recognition. In 1989, he was awarded architecture’s highest honor: the Pritzker Prize.

During this time his firm began using technology to address complicated design issues.  Although Gehry himself does not use a computer, a software program similar to that used by the Boeing Company to design aircraft allowed his team to digitize his models into two-dimensional drawings. This made it possible for Gehry to work with more precision and the models’ complex shapes became more translatable and better utilized by the manufacturers and engineers involved in the project.

This software tool was key in designing the Guggenheim Museum Bilboa, which opened in 1997 and made Gehry a celebrity at the age of 68. Although the Walt Disney Concert Hall was conceived around the same time, its construction was delayed due to a variety of factors, and the Los Angeles landmark did not open until October 2003. Understanding that Disney Hall was first and foremost a building for music, Gehry worked closely with a Japanese acoustic firm to ensure that the sound produced in the auditorium would be the best it could be.

As a sideline throughout his career as an architect — and an avenue to get more immediate satisfaction from his creative efforts — Gehry has designed furniture, watches, jewelry, vodka bottles, lamps and the World Cup of Hockey trophy.

Some critics say his work is more about form than function, but Disney Hall acoustics are considered outstanding. And in answer to those who think the Bilbao museum too grandiose, artist Julian Schnabel says,“If it does compete with the art, maybe that art isn’t good enough.” 

Santa Monica-based Gehry Partners LLP has a staff of more than 100 people, and, at 80, Gehry still personally designs and directs all projects, with no plans to retire.   

Suzanne Ridgway is a freelance writer and regular columnist for Working World and Working Nurse magazines. She also writes grant proposals for nonprofit organizations.