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FRANK OWEN GEHRY (1929-) 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 when he received the 1989 Pritzker Prize, the world's most prestigious architecture award. Gehry's most spectacular design next 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 championed him. Gehry became the most visible of an elite cohort of highly publicized "starchitects." He drew fire again with his design for the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle but 2004 saw the long-awaited 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 made a guest appearance on The Simpsons. Bio adapted from achievement.org and wikipedia. |
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1959 - The Steeves Residence, 1313 Casiano Road, Brentwood area of Los Angeles CA. Commissioned 1958. Sold in 1981 to Robert and Joanne Smith, who asked Gehry to add a new wing. Gehry's addition was rejected by his clients and by the Bel-Air Fine Arts Commission. The clients hired Frank Mutlow and John Dimster instead and proceeded with the addition. As of 2011 still owned by the Smith family.
1965 - The Danziger Studio and Residence, 7001 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood CA. Commissioned 1964. As of 2011 owned by Philip Noyce.
1968 - Clark County Family Housing, Henderson NV. Unbuilt.
1972 - The Ronald (Ron) Davis Studio and Residence, 29715 West Cuthbert Road, Malibu CA. Commissioned 1968. Sold to Ronald and Ellen Meszaros. Sold in 2003 to Alex and Sue Glasscock. As of 2011, owned by the Tin House Farm Trust, Douglas R. Stone, Trustee.
1970 - University Park Apartments, Irvine CA.
1971 - The Handler Residence, Santa Monica CA. Unbuilt.
1971 - The Hollydot Park Townhouses, Hollydot Park CO.
1972 - The Ed Janss Residence, West Los Angeles CA.
1976 - The Harper House, 111 Hamlet Hill Road, Village of Cross Keys MD.
1976 - The Norton and Jennifer Simon Guest House, Malibu CA. Commissioned 1974. The interior of an 8,000 sf Spanish-style building was gutted to house the client's vast collection of Asian art, and to provide guest rooms and entertainment areas to a building adjacent to the owners beach house. The second floor has a large roof terrace; the second, an uninterrupted view of the ocean.
1977 - The Ruscha House, Twentynine Palms CA.
1977 - The Weisman Beach House, aka the Trancas Beach House, Trancas CA.
1977 - The Gehry Residence Remodeling, 1002 22nd Street, Santa Monica CA. Gehry essentially built a new house around an existing one. Addition 1991-1994. As of 2011 still owned by the Gehry family. Bottom photo by Grant Mudford.
1978 - The St. Ives Residence
Addition, Santa Monica CA.
Commissioned 1976. Addition around three sides of an existing 1950s
Modernist white stucco building.
1978 - The Cheviot Hills Residence, Los Angeles CA.
1978 - The Nelson Residence, Westwood CA.
1978 - The Wagner Residence, Malibu CA. A residence for a family above and a psychiatrists office and a carport below. The nonorthogonal, corrugated metal-sheathed box (similar to the use of metal on the exterior of the Davis project) was to have 3 living areas. Because of the coastal regulations, the house was not built.
1978 - The Gunther Residence, Encinal Bluffs CA. Unbuilt. Located on a narrow bluff with a view of the Pacific Ocean. Stopped due to spiraling projected costs.
1978 - The
Familian Residence, Santa Monica CA. Unbuilt.
Designed as two pieces - entertaining area and living quarters.
According to Greg Walsh: "The house was very celebrated because
Jeffrey Kipnis and Philip Johnson organized a deconstruction
exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art and they picked this house
as a perfect example. It wasn't but it looked like it was.
It was all about flying 2 x 4's. At that time we were
looking at subdivisions before the stucco went on and saying how
great the subdivision looks until they put the finished walls on
it. Frank said 'how can I build a stud wall and just put
glass on it?'"
1978 -
The Jane M. Spiller Residence, 39 Horizon Avenue, Venice CA.
1981 - The Whitney House, aka House for a Filmmaker, Santa Monica Canyon CA. Commissioned 1980. Finished by another architect.
1981 - The Smith Residence, Brentwood CA. Unbuilt. Redesign of the Steeves House.
1981 - The 14th Street Housing, Atlanta GA.
1981 - The Binder House, Los Angeles CA.
1981 - The Dennis Hopper Condos, aka the Indiana Avenue Condos, aka the Chuck Arnoldi Triplex, 326, 330, and 322 Indiana Avenue, Venice CA. Three two-story condos by Gehry, plus the main house on the lot, bottom left photo, was designed by Brian Murphy. For sale in 2011.
1982 - The Fleck Residence, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt.
1983 - The Boxenbaum Residence, New York NY.
1983 - The Sally Kellerman and Jonathan Krane Renovation, Los Angeles CA. Kellerman had owned the house for years prior to the renovation. In fact, Harrison Ford worked on it as a carpenter before going into acting.
1988 - The Barbara Sirmai - Mark Peterson Residence, Thousand Oaks CA. Commissioned 1983.
1984 - The Robert and Lesley Benson Residence, Calabasas CA. 1500 sf. Commissioned 1979.   1984 - The Wosk Residence, 440 South Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills CA. Commissioned 1981. Actually, not a house but a penthouse of an apartment building.
1984 - The Bill and Lynn Norton House, 2509 Ocean Front Walk, Venice CA. Photo by Tim Street-Porter. Commissioned 1982. As of 2011 still owned by the Nortons.
1985 - The Turtle Creek Development, Dallas, TX. Unbuilt. Mixed-use complex with 3 towers, 8 townhouses, with 4 levels of parking underground. An oval, glass-skinned office building plus another gridded office tower and a similar residential condominium building stacked atop a 100-room hotel.
1987 - The Burton Borman Residence, Broad Beach Road, Malibu CA. On the ocean.
Late 1980's - The Mike and Penny Winton Guest House, originally at 1760 Shoreline Drive, Wayzata MN. Located next to a Philip Johnson house designed in 1952. Then the land was subdivided with each house on a separate parcel. The Johnson-designed house was sold to Bob and Carolyn Nelson. The Gehry-designed 2300sf house was sold to Kirk Woodhouse and sat vacant for years. He eventually gave it to to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul in 2008 and paid for a 2009 relocation 60 miles south to the Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna MN. As of 2011, it was open to the public.
1989 - The Marna and Rockwell Schnabel Residence, 536 North Carmelina, Los Angeles CA. Commissioned 1986. Sold to Jon and Jill Platt in 2006. Sometimes reported as located on North Cliffwood, which is incorrect. For sale in 2011.
1989 - The Peter Lewis Residence, Lyndhurst OH. Unbuilt. Lewis later commissioned Philip Johnson for an addition to this scheme, but it was not built either.
1991 - The Bonames Housing Project, Frankfurt, Germany.
1991 - The Goldstein Housing Project, Straßburger Straße 7, Frankfurt, Germany. Photo by Thomas Mayer.
 2006 - The Venice Beach House, Venice Beach CA.  2011 - New York By Gehry, aka Beekman Tower, 8 Spruce Street, New York NY. 76 stories containing 903 rental apartments and a public school.   2012 - The Swire Apartments, 53 Stubbs Road, Hong Kong, China. Swire Properties first approached Mr. Gehry with the project in 2004; the design was unveiled in 2009. Scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2012. Should be some of most expensive real estate in Hong Kong. $3400 per sf.  2005 - The Tower/Virgin Records Store Renovation, 360 Newbury, MA. Converted to condos with interiors by Gehry, Robert Stern, and Richard Meier.   2012 - The Make It Right House, 1750 Tennessee Street, New Orleans LA. Funded by Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation. Sources include: Architectural Digest September 1987; achievement.org; Frank Gehry: The Houses by Mildred Freeman. |
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