Great Architects Of The World: Frank Gehry

Architect Frank Gehry's deconstructed post modern designs- with their twisting, undulating and otherworldly forms- have made him a figure of both praise and controversy throughout the 21st century.

His titanium clad Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in  Spain is one of the most universally admired and famous examples of modern architecture in the world. On the flip side of the coin, his head-turning design for Sydney UTS's Dr Chau Chak Wing Building was once described by a critic as a "squashed brown paper bag".
Dr Chau Chak Wing, Sydney
Whatever your opinion, this Canadian born, US architect, is recognised as one of the most influential architects in the world. Vanity Fair even labelled him "the most important architect of our time".

Born in 1929, Frank Gehry was born in Toronto, Ontario. In 1949, he moved to California where he studied at Los Angeles City College while juggling jobs as a truck driver and a radio announcer. In 1954, he graduated from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture with a Bachelor of Architecture.

Gehry didn't establish his architecture firm until 1962, after service in the army and a short stint studying city planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design.
One of Gehry's most famous early designs is the renovation of his own home in California.

His career took off in the late 1980s, when he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989. He soon began to receive international and national commissions. In the 1990s, these included the Frederick Weisman Museum of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1993 and the Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic in 1996.

Dancing House, Prague Czech Republic 
His most famous work is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao which opened in 1997.  New Yorker Magazine hailed it as a "masterpiece of the twentieth century" and architect Philip Johnson called it the "greatest building of our time".

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain 
 Other notable works include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, USA...

....the  Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas, USA (Photos by Matthew Carbone)...

And most recently the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris...

Outside of architecture, Gehry has also collaborated with Tiffany & Co on a line of jewellery and several lines of furniture. He is also the Judge Widney Professor of Architecture at his alma mater, the University of Southern California.