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From the NYTimes: Frank Gehry, Titan of Architecture, Is Dead at 96
Pioneering American architect, Frank Gehry died earlier this month. He is best known for landmark, sculptural buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) — which sparked the “Bilbao effect” of using iconic architecture to revive cities, The the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) in Los Angeles uses similar forms and materials for a striking appearance.
He broke with modernist orthodoxy by using everyday materials and expressive, often fragmented forms; he was an early adopter of computer design to achieve complex, sculptural structures. I see his influence in Chipotle restaurants. We have two locally: one prominently features a corregated metal; the other a lighted wall with plywood with a series of holes in it. Both use simple, inexpensive materials to create a pleasant aesthetic.
He also partnered with Fossil to design perhaps my favorite watch. It used Gehry’s own handwriting along with a clever display to present the time. There’s a simple artistic elegance in how it projects time: half past 8, 27 til 2, and so on within a simple rectangular frame.
Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison issued a call for a new design aesthetic while noting how Bauhaus thinking affected design in the 20th century. Gehry’s unique contribution to late 20th and early 21st century architecture is notable for how it leaned into organic forms, creating structures that are as much art as function. Architecture, it seems, can both serve a physical need and stir the soul.
Gehry (as well Cowen’s and Collison’s Call for a New Aesthetic) reminds us that people and society are embodied souls. We need physical spaces. While the internet, mobile technology, and more recently AI tech are amazing and transformative, Gehry’s architecture invites us to see beauty in the places we live and in the structures we build. And the watches we put on our wrists.1
- Yes, I have an Apple Watch, and it’s an amazing tool but not a beautiful or particularly clever watch. But that’s a much longer post I’ll likely never write! ↩︎