Frank Gehry, architect, is 93 years old today.
A number of Gehry’s buildings, including his private residence, have become world renowned tourist attractions. His works are cited as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, which led Vanity Fair to label him as "the most important architect of our age.”
Gehry's best-known works include the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; MIT Ray and Maria Stata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.
Also The Vontz Center for Molecular Studies on the University of Cincinnati campus; Experience Music Project in Seattle; New World Center in Miami Beach; Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis; Dancing House in Prague; the Vitra Design Museum and the museum MARTa Herford in Germany; the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; the Cinémathèque française in Paris and 8 Spruce Street in New York City.
But it was his private residence in Santa Monica, California, that jump-started his career, lifting it from the status of "paper architecture" — a phenomenon that many famous architects have experienced in their formative decades through experimentation almost exclusively on paper before receiving their first major commission in later years.
Gehry is also the designer of the future National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.
Above, Gehry in front of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
The Frank Gehry-designed headquarters for Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp at 555 West 18 St. in New York City was the architect’s first contribution to the Manhattan skyline.
It’s been said that Diller suggested that his riverside headquarters have “something to do with sailing up the Hudson” and, indeed, the building is the embodiment of that sense of motion and movement.
The building presents multiple points of view at the same time. Even the cube’s silver finish mimics the shimmer of Gehry’s signature stainless steel structures.
Photo by Frank Beacham