Frank Gehry was born Ephraim Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada. He moved with his family to Los Angeles as a teenager in 1947 and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. His father changed the family's name to Gehry when the family immigrated. Ephraim adopted the first name Frank in his 20s.
Uncertain of career direction, the teenage Gehry drove a delivery truck to support himself while taking a variety of courses at Los Angeles City College. He took his first architecture courses and became enthralled with the possibilities of the art, although at first he found himself hampered by his relative lack of skill as a draftsman. Sympathetic teachers and an early encounter with Modernist architect Raphael Soriano confirmed his career choice. He won scholarships to the University of Southern California and graduated in 1954 with a degree in architecture.
Gehry went to work full-time for the notable Los Angeles firm of Victor Gruen Associates, where he had apprenticed as a student, but his work at Gruen was soon interrupted by ca year in the United States Army. Gehry then entered the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he studied city planning but returned to Los Angeles without completing a graduate degree. He briefly joined the firm of Pereira and Luckman before returning to Victor Gruen. Gehry got restless. He took his wife and two children to Paris, where he spent a year working in the office of the French architect Andre Remondet and studied firsthand the work of the pioneer Modernist Le Corbusier.
Gehry and his family returned to LA from Paris in 1962 and he established what is now known as Gehry Partners. For a number of years, he continued to work in the established Modernist style but was also increasingly drawn to the avant-garde arts scene growing up around the beach communities of Venice and Santa Monica. Gehry found a creative outlet in rebuilding his own home, converting what he called "a dumb little house with charm" into a showplace for a radically new style of domestic building. He took common, unlovely elements of American homebuilding, such as chain link fencing, corrugated aluminum and unfinished plywood, and used them as flamboyant expressive elements, while stripping the interior walls of the house to reveal the structural elements. His Santa Monica neighbors were scandalized, but Gehry's house attracted serious critical attention and he began to employ more imaginative elements in his commercial work. His international reputation was confirmed with the 1989 Pritzker Prize, the world's most prestigious architecture award.
Gehry's most spectacular design was the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, completed in 1997. Traditional Modernists criticized the work as eccentric but distinguished architects such as Philip Johnson helped Gehry became the most visible of an elite group of highly publicized "starchitects." He drew fire again with his design for the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle but in 2004 saw the a heralded completion of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.
In 2006, Gehry was the subject of a documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry, by director Sydney Pollack. He also made a 2005 animated guest appearance on The Simpsons.
Bio adapted from achievement.org and wikipedia.
Frank Gehry was born Ephraim Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada. He moved with his family to Los Angeles as a teenager in 1947 and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. His father changed the family's name to Gehry when the family immigrated. Ephraim adopted the first name Frank in his 20s.
Uncertain of career direction, the teenage Gehry drove a delivery truck to support himself while taking a variety of courses at Los Angeles City College. He took his first architecture courses and became enthralled with the possibilities of the art, although at first he found himself hampered by his relative lack of skill as a draftsman. Sympathetic teachers and an early encounter with Modernist architect Raphael Soriano confirmed his career choice. He won scholarships to the University of Southern California and graduated in 1954 with a degree in architecture.
Gehry went to work full-time for the notable Los Angeles firm of Victor Gruen Associates, where he had apprenticed as a student, but his work at Gruen was soon interrupted by ca year in the United States Army. Gehry then entered the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he studied city planning but returned to Los Angeles without completing a graduate degree. He briefly joined the firm of Pereira and Luckman before returning to Victor Gruen. Gehry got restless. He took his wife and two children to Paris, where he spent a year working in the office of the French architect Andre Remondet and studied firsthand the work of the pioneer Modernist Le Corbusier.
Gehry and his family returned to LA from Paris in 1962 and he established what is now known as Gehry Partners. For a number of years, he continued to work in the established Modernist style but was also increasingly drawn to the avant-garde arts scene growing up around the beach communities of Venice and Santa Monica. Gehry found a creative outlet in rebuilding his own home, converting what he called "a dumb little house with charm" into a showplace for a radically new style of domestic building. He took common, unlovely elements of American homebuilding, such as chain link fencing, corrugated aluminum and unfinished plywood, and used them as flamboyant expressive elements, while stripping the interior walls of the house to reveal the structural elements. His Santa Monica neighbors were scandalized, but Gehry's house attracted serious critical attention and he began to employ more imaginative elements in his commercial work. His international reputation was confirmed with the 1989 Pritzker Prize, the world's most prestigious architecture award.
Gehry's most spectacular design was the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, completed in 1997. Traditional Modernists criticized the work as eccentric but distinguished architects such as Philip Johnson helped Gehry became the most visible of an elite group of highly publicized "starchitects." He drew fire again with his design for the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle but in 2004 saw the a heralded completion of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.
In 2006, Gehry was the subject of a documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry, by director Sydney Pollack. He also made a 2005 animated guest appearance on The Simpsons.
Bio adapted from achievement.org and wikipedia.
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