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Monday, July 28, 2014

Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry (1929- ) was born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada. A naturalized citizen of the United States, he graduated from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture in 1954 and began his career in Los Angeles with Victor Gruen Associates. He also attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design to study urban planning. When he returned to Los Angeles, he worked briefly for Pereira and Luckman before rejoining Gruen, where he stayed until 1960.

In 1961 he and his family moved to Paris, and he worked in the office of Andre Remondet. While living in Europe for a year, he studied the work of LeCorbusier and Balthasar Neumann. In 1962, Gehry moved with his family back to Los Angeles and opened his own firm.

Gehry's most famous postmodern designs include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. In addition to his career in architecture, Gehry designed furniture. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he produced the Easy Edge series of chairs, made of corrugated cardboard. Fearing that his reputation as an architect might be affected by his furniture design, he took the chairs off the market after only a few years.

In the 1980s he returned to furniture design, creating Experimental Edges furniture, and in the 1990s he designed a collection of bentwood chairs for Knoll, and in 2004 he designed the Superlight chair for Emeco.

Gehry has received many prestigious awards, including the Pritzker Prize in 1989.

From pritzkerprize.com, getty.edu, biography.com and dwr.com


Walt Disney Concert Hall
mkalty.org

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao, Spain
guggenheim-bilbao.org

Wiggle side chair
design-museum.de

Contour chair
metmuseum.org

Carumba chair
sfmoma.org

Superlight chair
sfmoma.org

10 comments:

  1. I love Gehry's architecture, especially the Guggenheim in Bilbao. And funny, the chair that I was drawn to was the simplest- Superlight.

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    1. That chair looks exactly like something you'd have in your home.

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  2. Didn't recognize his early picture, use to the gray hair.

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    1. I actually had put one of the more familiar photos of him in the post and then decided to go back and hunt for a younger version.

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  3. My husband gave me a Frank Gehry white ceramic bowl that Gehry designed for Tiffany. I love it. :)

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    1. Lucky you! I'd love to have one of his kettles.

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  4. It's an education every time I visit you, Dana. And I love it!

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    1. I'm so glad you find my posts helpful and interesting! :)

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  5. This is great! He also designed jewelry for Tiffany and years ago Richie bought me one of his bracelets in sterling silver. It was so fancy getting that tiffany blue box with a Gehry design inside. A special anniversary, indeed! I've been quiet in the blog world but I always visit you and love your posts. Hope you're doing well, Dana!!

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    1. What a great anniversary gift! I miss your posts, but I'm glad you're still stopping by to read mine.

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