Natalie Pearson
Each month, Kingsley likes to honour an architect who has made fundamental contributions to the modern architectural field. This November, we’re turning to Frank Gehry:
The architect
Born Frank Owen Goldberg on the 28th February 1929 in Toronto, Canada, this renowned architect now lives in Los Angeles, USA. The 88-year-old has designed a raft of influential buildings across the world, with a number of them having become tourist attractions. This includes one of his own homes in Santa Monica, California, which helped to put him on the architectural map.
After trying a number of careers and academic pursuits, including time spent as a delivery truck driver, radio announcing, and chemical engineering, it was his early love of museums and design that drew him to try architecture, in his own words, “on a hunch”.
His famous Designs
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, SpainAmong Gehry’s many architectural accomplishments are:
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, USA
The Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), Seattle, USA
The Dancing House, Prague, Czechia
8 Spruce Street, New York, USA
El Peix, Barcelona, Catalonia
His Style
Gehry’s designs are modern, with many of his buildings avoiding using regular forms. Flowing lines and curves are standard in the Canadian-American architect’s repertoire, and his bold designs have been linked to influences in modernism. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao also gave rise to use of the term the ‘Bilbao effect’, which is when an area is revitalised both culturally and economically by a new piece of architecture.
