Frank Gehry

Frank Owen Gehry ( né Goldberg; February 28, 1929 – December 5, 2025) was a Canadian and American architect and designer.

A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become attractions. He was known for his postmodern designs and use of bold, unconventional forms and materials. His most famous works include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. These buildings are characterized by their sculptural, often undulating exteriors and innovative use of materials such as titanium and stainless steel.

Gehry rose to prominence in the 1970s with his distinctive style that blended everyday materials with complex, dynamic structures. Gehry's approach to architecture was described as deconstructivist, though he resisted categorization. His works are considered among the most important of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, leading Vanity Fair to call him "the most important architect of our age".

Throughout his career, Gehry received numerous awards and honors, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989, considered the field's highest honor. He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States. Gehry's influence extends beyond architecture; he designed furniture, jewelry, and liquor bottles.

Early life

Frank Owen Goldberg was born on February 28, 1929, at Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, to parents Sadie Thelma (née Kaplanski/Caplan) and Irving Goldberg. His American father was born in New York City to Russian-Jewish parents, and his Polish-Jewish mother was an immigrant born in Łódź. A creative child, he was encouraged by his grandmother, Leah Caplan, with whom he built little cities out of scraps of wood. With these scraps from her husband's hardware store, she entertained him for hours, building imaginary houses and futuristic cities on the living room floor.

Gehry's use of corrugated steel, chain-link fencing, unpainted plywood, and other utilitarian or "everyday" materials was partly inspired by spending Saturday mornings at his grandfather's hardware store. He spent time drawing with his father, and his mother introduced him to the world of art. "So the creative genes were there", Gehry said. "But my father thought I was a dreamer, I wasn't gonna amount to anything. It was my mother who thought I was just reticent to do things. She would push me."

He was given the Hebrew name "Ephraim" by his grandfather, but used it only at his bar mitzvah. In 1954, Gehry changed his surname from Goldberg to Gehry, after his then-wife Anita expressed concern about antisemitism.

Gehry and his family moved to the gold mining town of Timmins, Ontario, in 1937 but moved back to Toronto after facing antisemitism.

In 1947, Gehry's family emigrated to the United States, settling in California. He got a job driving a delivery truck and studied at Los Angeles City College.

Gehry stated,

I was a truck driver in L.A., going to City College, and I tried radio announcing, which I wasn't very good at. I tried chemical engineering, which I wasn't very good at and didn't like, and then I remembered. You know, somehow I just started wracking my brain about, 'What do I like?' Where was I? What made me excited? And I remembered art, that I loved going to museums and I loved looking at paintings, loved listening to music. Those things came from my mother, who took me to concerts and museums. I remembered Grandma and the blocks, and just on a hunch, I tried some architecture classes.

Gehry went on to graduate from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture in 1954, where his professors included William Pereira. During that time, he became a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi.  He then spent time away from architecture in numerous other jobs, including service in the United States Army. In the fall of 1956, he moved his family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studied city planning at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Gehry always expressed a socialist philosophy for architecture, something that was influenced by political views as he expressed a more leftist attitude to the world. These progressive ideas about socially responsible architecture were under-realized and not respected by his professors at Harvard, leaving him to feel disheartened and "underwhelmed". Gehry's distaste for the school culminated after he was invited by his architecture professor to engage in a discussion revolving around a "secret architectural project in progress", which was ultimately revealed to Gehry as a palace that he was designing for Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Personal life and death

Gehry became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951, several years after he and his family moved to Los Angeles. He lost his Canadian citizenship as dual citizenship was not an option at the time. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien restored Gehry's Canadian citizenship in 2002. He lived in Santa Monica, California, and practiced out of Los Angeles. Having grown up in Canada, he was an avid fan of ice hockey. He began a hockey league, FOG (for Frank Owen Gehry), in his office, and continued to play the game until around the age of 80. In 2004, he designed the trophy for the World Cup of Hockey.

In 1952, Gehry married Anita Synder; in 1966, they were divorced. In 1975, he married Berta Aguilera.

Gehry was known for his occasional bad temper. During a trip to Oviedo to accept the Prince of Asturias Award in October 2014, he received a significant amount of attention, both positive and negative, for publicly flipping off a reporter at a press conference who accused him of being a "showy" architect.

He was a member of the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, and enjoyed sailing with his fiberglass-hulled yacht, Foggy.

Gehry died from a respiratory condition at his home in Santa Monica, on December 5, 2025, at the age of 96. He was survived by his wife, Berta, and three children.

Philanthropy

In 2014, Gehry co-founded Turnaround Arts: California, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that expands access to the arts in under-resourced public elementary and middle schools across California. In addition to serving as a board member for the organization, Gehry served as a visiting artist with students. He also served on the leadership council of the New York Stem Cell Foundation.

Gehry also donated his time to design projects pro bono. In 2014, he began pro bono work with the L.A. River Revitalization Corp., a nonprofit group founded by the city, to develop the LA River Master Plan. In 2015, he unveiled his design, for which he waived his design fee, for the Children's Institute in Watts, an LA-based social services organization that provides services to families who have experienced violence and poverty. The Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), which is an educational center and performance space that provides free instruments, music training, and academic support to students from disadvantaged neighborhoods, was also designed pro bono by Gehry and was completed in 2021.