Frank Gehry

All I can say about Sketches of Frank Gehry by Sydney Pollock is WOW. Okay, I can say a bit more than that since I am pretty good about going on and on about something. I have always liked unusual architecture and used to watch shows about it on Home and Garden Television (HGTV). Frank Gehry has designed so many buildings that look like either were be terribly difficult and near impossible to make and keep standing. I loved them all. He is brilliant.

Frank Gehry established his practice in Los Angeles, California in 1962. The Gehry partnership, Gehry Partners, LLP, was formed in 2001 and currently supports a staff of over 120 people. Every project that his company works on is designed personally by Frank Gehry.

Frank Gehry loves to sketch and sketches out his plans for the architectural designs that he's making. He calls this "tentativeness, the messiness". Gehry’s sketches for each major project become buildings of titanium and glass, concrete and steel, wood and stone. Before his sketches are made into the finished building, he makes models from his sketches so that he can see how the building works and is going to be used. Gehry and his colleagues make sure that the plans are going to work by studying the model. His designs make it hard to distinguish between architecture and art. They look like unbelievably, large works of art. The strong appeal of his sculptural designs have led to his fame. He is one of the rare architects that have not only received critical acclaim, but popular fame. There has not been an architect since Frank Lloyd Wright that has become a household name like Frank Gehry has become.

Frank Gehry’s buildings are not made to just be another building. They are built from the inside out. Wooden block massing studies are constructed and reconstructed in step with Gehry’s own evolving sketches. Gestural models of cardboard, wood, and cloth act as intermediaries, keeping Gehry conscious of the three-dimensional implications. This makes him work in "two or three scales at once" and forces him to not think of the model as an “object of desire”, but to focus on how the building works. His buildings make people feel comfortable because when designing buildings he is concerned about how the people that are going to be occupying the building are going to use it and how he can make the building work best for them. This is probably one of the main reasons that he has become so well known.