Maker/Artist
Gehry, Frank
American architect, born 1929 in Canada
American architect, exhibition designer, furniture and jewelry designer, and teacher. After working in various practices, he opened Frank O. Gehry and Associates, Inc. in 1962, where her remains as Design Principal. His early work, such as his own Gehry House (1979), shows a deconstructionist approach, taking an older building and re-assembling it with apparently casually placed low-cost corrugated metal panels, steel poles, and a canopy of wire mesh fencing. Since the 1980s, Gehry’s work has focused on the use of shiny metallic surfaces, emphasizing curving lines and the play of light and shade. The best examples are the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (1997) and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003). In design, his approach is similar to his architecture, where disposable materials such as cardboard are used to make chairs with undulating forms that suggest elements in nature.