Frank O. Gehry, one of the most original and influential architects in American architectural history and a Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, has passed away at the age of 96, according to The Paper. A maverick, he loved breaking tradition and challenging the limits of aesthetics. His works challenged architectural values; those who loved them hailed them as genius, while those who hated them condemned them as garbage. He was a key figure in deconstructivism. Even at 96, he was still drawing, on-site, and contemplating how to once again "liberate architecture from established rules" before his death.
Frank O. Gehry (1929–2025)
According to reports from The New York Times and other US media outlets, Frank O. Gehry, one of the most original and influential architects in American architectural history and a Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, passed away on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 96, due to a brief respiratory illness.
Gehry revolutionized architecture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries with his groundbreaking formal language, sculptural architectural works, and bold use of digital technology. His most well-known masterpiece, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) in Spain, shocked the world with its explosive titanium metal curves and successfully revitalized an industrial city, giving rise to the "Bilbao effect" of urban renewal.
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997)
Since establishing his firm in the early 1960s, Gehry's studio has been based in Los Angeles. Over more than half a century of practice, the firm has created more than a hundred remarkable and diverse architectural works around the world.
Gehry Studio
Gehry's architectural career was illustrious, yet he was always at the center of academic controversy. While renowned for his signature "sculptural" architectural forms, his irregular curves were also criticized as "expensive, useless spaces." Art critic Hal Foster argued that Gehry's work primarily served corporate brands. Because his clients were mostly wealthy upper-class individuals and his designs were extremely expensive, Gehry's architecture was considered unfriendly to the vast majority of ordinary people in the world.
From a rebel who "demolished houses" in Los Angeles to one of the world's most famous architects
Gehry first attracted attention in 1978 with his Santa Monica residence—he dismantled, wrapped, and reassembled an ordinary timber-framed house, using plywood, corrugated iron sheets, and metal mesh to create a "rough, broken, yet emotionally rich" expression. This work reflected the rupture in American society during the 1960s and 70s and established his status as a "rebel" in the architectural world.
Gehry's House 1978
Gehry's House 1978
Subsequently, he continuously broke free from the constraints of traditional functionalism and postmodernism, turning towards a more sculptural language. Representative works include:
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles (2003): Its interior and exterior flow like a giant silver sailboat, and it is hailed as one of the most successful concert halls of our time.
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles (2003)
Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2014): Light and transparent like blown glass.
Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris (2014)
Prague's "Dancing House": a twin-towered, rhythmic structure named after "Ginger and Fred." Gehry likened the building's two main towers to the Hollywood golden dance duo Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Together, they create a rhythmic, pas de deux-like posture, as if turning and interacting, thus giving the building a dynamic, "dancing" feel.
Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic (1996)
Critics have said his architecture is “too sculptural” or that his fame has sparked the “starchitect” era, but Gehry has always emphasized that his pursuit is to “make architecture more democratic and closer to real life.”
From Toronto's slums to the world stage
Gehry was born in Toronto, Canada in 1929. His childhood was marked by both poverty and enlightenment: his experience of assembling screws in a hardware store influenced his preference for simple materials, while the scene of his grandmother buying live carp to cook at home nurtured the recurring imagery of "fish" in his later works.
Gell-Breeze tests the stability of cardboard tables | ©Ralph Morse
He moved to Los Angeles during his teenage years due to his father's heart condition. There, he was exposed to the free and unruly Californian culture, a melting pot of artists—the dilapidated warehouses, surfing equipment, and makeshift workspaces formed his first lesson in "non-academic architecture."
Fish-shaped sculpture in the Olympic Village (El Peix), 1992 ©Till Niermann
Located on the coast of the Olympic Village in Barcelona, Spain, the fish-shaped sculpture is the first structure built by Gehry's firm using CATIA. Measuring 56 meters long and 35 meters high, the simple, primitive form of the "big fish" seems poised to leap into the azure Mediterranean Sea. The sculpture's surface is made of interwoven gilded stainless steel strips, supported by a metal structure; its soft, subtle "skin" shimmers under the strong sunlight of the sea, creating a phosphorescent effect.
Bilbao: Architecture that Changed the World
In 1991, the Guggenheim Foundation invited Gehry to design the new Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. Six years later, a marvel of metal folds and flowing light and shadow was born—attracting more than 1.3 million visitors that year and quickly becoming a global architectural pilgrimage site.
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 1997
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, 1997 ©Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Architectural critic Herbert Muscamp described it as "like Marilyn Monroe's flowing skirt," symbolizing an American spirit that is "free yet fragile, stunning yet open."
Still highly productive in his later years
Even in his 90s, Gehry remains incredibly creative: the Pierre Boulez Hall in Berlin (2017), the Luma Foundation building in Arles, France (2021), the Beverly Hills flagship store and new Paris showroom for Louis Vuitton (under construction), the new concert hall at the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles (in progress)...
Luma Foundation building in Arles, France (2021) @ Adrian Deweerdt
Official renderings of the Beverly Hills flagship store and the new Paris exhibition hall (under construction) designed for Louis Vuitton.
Official rendering of the new Colburn Center concert hall at the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles (under construction).
Having lived in a cheap apartment in Los Angeles during his youth, he eventually left behind one of the city's most iconic concert halls.
“You enter architecture to make the world a better place,” Gehry said in 2012. “Not for yourself, not for glory. Those are things that come later.” Before his death at the age of 96, he was still drawing, on-site, and thinking about how to “liberate architecture from the established rules” once again.
