THE HOUSES

FRANK GEHRY (1929-)

One of the great architects of our time, Frank Gehry has revolutionized the use of materials in design and redefined how architects use computers as a design tool to advance form-making as we know it. He has achieved worldwide fame for such large-scale public projects as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, but it was in private houses that Gehry first explored and interrogated the principles of modern architecture. In these houses—most notably his own, in Santa Monica, California—Gehry distorted, expanded, and collapsed the modernist box, exploring everyday materials (corrugated metal, unfinished plywood, and chain link), experimenting with color, and challenging accepted notions about geometry and structure. In houses such as the Schnabel House in Brentwood, California, and the Winton Guest House in Wayzata, Minnesota, he experimented with collage and assemblage. More recently, Gehry’s work has taken on sculptural forms, aided by new structural and geometric potentials of digital design, as in the near-legendary Lewis House in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Color photographs, sketches, and plans create an illuminating visual record of some of the most groundbreaking, seminal projects of Gehry’s oeuvre.

About the Author

Frank Gehry has received widespread recognition for his work, including the Pritzker Prize, and many awards from the American Institute of Architects. Mildred Friedman is the editor of Rizzoli’s The Architecture of Frank Gehry (1986) and Gehry Talks: Architecture + Process (1999). Sylvia Lavin is professor of architectural history and theory at UCLA, where she was chairperson from 1996 to 2006.