Frank Gehry

One of the most amazing architect was born on February 28, 1929 in Toronto, Canada.

Biography

Frank Owen Goldberg was born in a Polish and Jewish family. Frank always built imaginary homes and cities from items found in his grandfather’s hardware store when he was young. This shows that he was really creative since his childhood. He was interested in making unusual buildings working with unique and different kinds of materials. He shifted to Los Angeles where he got many jobs while he was in college. While he was in college, he changed his surname from Goldberg to Gehry It was during his time that he changed his Goldberg surname to Gehry, in an effort to preclude anti-Semitism. Gehry moved to Massachusetts in 1956 with his wife Anita Snyder for enrolling at the Harvard Graduate School Design. Later, he dropped out of Harvard and also divorced his wife, with whom he had two daughters. He married Berta Isabel Aguilera in 1975 and had two more children.

Gehry's Style

He usually designed unique buildings with uncommon building materials. His collection of materials such as grooved metal gives some of Gehry's designs an unfinished or even crude aesthetic. This constant aesthetic has made Gehry one of the most distinctive and easily recognizable designers of all time.

Interesting Facts

Frank Gehry is known for his professionalism and devotion to budgets, in spite of his complex and determined designs.
Gehry has played himself on television programs, including The Simpsons, and has appeared in advertisements for Apple.
In 2005, director Sydney Pollack made a documentary film, Sketches of Frank Gehry, focusing on the architect's work and legacy.

Education and Training

He went to the University of Southern California and Harvard University but he dropped out Harvard. After leaving Harvard, he came back to Los Angeles to make a name for himself by launching “Easy Edges” cardboard furniture line. The Easy Edges pieces, crafted from layers of corrugated cardboard which was sold between 1969 and 1973. But, Gehry was not satisfied with his work as he was always more interested in architect. He remodeled a home for his family in Santa Monica with the money earned from Easy Edges. After that only, people came to know about his building skills and then he started designing houses in South California on a regular basis in the 1980s.

Awards Received

Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989
National Medal of Arts in 1998
AIA Gold Medal in 1999
Royal Gold Medal in 2000
Woodrow Wilson Awards in 2004
Wolf Prize in Arts in 1992
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 1994
Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture in 1977
Gold Medal for Architecture in 2002
Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts in 1998
Praemium Imperiale in 1992

Gehry's works

Guggenheim Museum – Bilbao, Spain
Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angels, United States of America
Dancing House – Czech Republic
8 Spruce Street – New York, United States of America
Vitra Design Museum – WEIL AM RHEIN, GERMANY
Olympic Fish Pavilion – BARCELONA
Weisman Art Museum – MINNEAPOLIS

Essential Skills

Sketch: They should be good in drawing and able to plan out and be able to communicate with your team mates. Sketching is the most efficient way to express an idea.
Deal with Criticism: All creative professions are prone to criticism. They should believe in their ideas and themselves. Their first priority should be their project.
Reading is one of the most important habits. They should read both technical magazines and design magazines: the content of each makes you stronger in the other.
Get more active: They don’t just sit in the office. They should get in the fields and often visit their sites.
Listen and appreciating others views: They should always listen to their clients and customers to know their needs and desires.
Consult Your Consultants: They should ask their consultants for advice and don’t just tell them what to do. They have expertise and want to take ownership in the project too. They have innovative ideas and sometimes just need to be asked for their thoughts achieving the desired intent.
Thinking is the most important skill as they need to think and plan a lot to develop their own style. They think about the site, the client, and the program specific requirements.

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Saumya Amar