Frank Gerry, the Canadian-born renegade artist behind some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, has died at 96.
Meaghan Lloyd, chief of staff at Gehry Partner, LLP, said she died Friday morning at her home in Santa Monica, Calif., after a brief illness.
Known for his Contemporary Style and designs, Gehry brought unique life to cultural spaces including Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles and Los Angeles, Calif.
His unusual work in museums, office spaces and private homes produced the kind of attention often seen in architects, making his formal creations among the most recognizable in the world. He was immortal even in the cartoon about him in the episode of The Simpsons.
Listening to critics of his expansion of the trademark outside – where there are just designs was part of the job, said Gehry in 2012 when he presented the first concept of the condo buildings of his house.
The buildings drew harsh criticism from some Torontonians when the models were unveiled and they began to reorganize before construction began. The revised plan of the project, which is under construction, includes two skyscrapers in the Skyscrapers district of the City.
Frank Gry on the question of human mortality
“In Bilbao, Spain they wanted to shoot me when they saw (Guggenheim Design) and now they got an extra hall in the city.”
Grandparents are often cited as the first influence
Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929 to Polish immigrant parents who lived in Toronto. His childhood was centered around family, and his grandmother is often cited as an early influence on his famous career.
His grandmother, Leya, used to scatter oddly shaped Wood Staps bought from a nearby furniture store in her kitchen station and encouraged the young Gehry to use them to build symbolic buildings, bridges and cities before they got into the wooden stops.
“(It was) the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. I realized it was a license to play,” Gehry was quoted as saying in a 2015 biography Architecture: The Life and Work of Frank Gryby Paul Goldberger.
As a teenager, Gehry went to Friday lectures at the University of Toronto and particularly liked one speaker, he concluded in particular with the founder of Allvar Aalto, another modern designer who thrived by breaking the rules.
Gehry and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1947 and he became an American citizen three years later. His early years in the US were spent as a truck driver during the day, while he took classes at night school and later earned a degree in architecture from the University of Southern California.
The career started with a bang in Los Angeles
It wasn’t until the mid-1950s that Gehry changed his mind by adding his name to his first wife’s hats. He fears the name Goldberg would expose their children to antisemitism. Later he said he regretted doing so.
Those years were filled with professional ups and downs as she balanced her ambitions with a tight budget and the responsibilities of raising her two children. He served in the US Army while building contacts in the architectural community on weekends, and studied urban planning at Harvard University before dropping out.
His career started with a bang: He opened his Los Angeles business in 1962 and two years later he worked at the Danziger Studio and in residence throughout Los Angeles Landmark. Most of his early projects stick to modern styles, favoring geometric lines and simplicity.
In 1967, Gehry’s reputation in the architectural community was far from over. He was hired to design the Merriweather Post Pavilion, Amphitheater in Columbia, MD. It was his first project to be included in the New York Times, which called it “an unqualified architectural success.”
Gehry concentrated on projects in southern California in those early years, including his private residence in San Pedro, Calif., (1978).
The designs took shape in cities around the world in the 1990s
In the 1990s, Gehry’s famous designs were taking shape in cities around the world. The Frederick Weisman Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Bilbao and El Peix, a fish-like structure designed by Gehry for Barcelona, all reflect his playful and unusual situations.
Giving him the prestigious pritzker architecture prize in 1989, art critic and Juror ada Louise Huxteble wrote that Gerry allowed to enjoy the separation with each building he made.
He wrote: “One cannot think of anything he has done that does not make him smile.
“These are simple and healthy plans and structures that lift the spirit with revelations of revelations of how the seemingly ordinary can be more through the actions of thinking.”
Gehry’s projects are too numerous to name, but among other notable works are the Redalign Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Gehry Tower in Hannover, Germany, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris.
The inspiring influence of Gry’s grandmother inspired him to take on a much cooler role in the next generation of creatives. He joined Arts Turnaround, a US initiative run by the Kennedy Center that aims to improve the performance of the country’s primary education through arts-based learning.
Gehry awarded the Freedom Medal of Freedom
Gehry was among the leaders who taught classes in architecture for students who say they often don’t work with academia otherwise. He would put physical objects in front of them, like his grandmother once did, and ask them to use their imaginations.
“You can get involved in painting and making things — that dirty stuff,” he told The Canada Press in a 2019 interview.
“When they make a small building, or a city … you can say, ‘If you put them together who run this city?’ So you can teach Civics and all that. So, I think my grandmother’s idea was perfect. “
Gehry was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest honor, in 2016 by US President Barack Obama.
In his speech, Obama said Gehry inspired others through his support of arts education and philanthropy.
“The idea of what the construction of this could be, he decided to expand,” Obama said.
“Frank’s work teaches us that while buildings can be solid and rooted in the ground, like all great art they can lift our spirits. They can rise, they can enhance our environment.”
