Iconic Architect Frank Gehry, 96, Leaves an Incomparable Legacy
Take a look at the life and legacy of legendary architect Frank Gehry, who redefined the art of the profession.
準建築人手札網站 Forgemind ArchiMedia at Flickr, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Iconic architect Frank Gehry, who passed away December 5 2025 at age 96, leaves behind a legacy that fundamentally transformed how we think about buildings and public spaces. Although he was not known for designing celebrity residences, his public buildings were celebrities in their own right. He was certainly one of the world’s most celebrated architects, and was a celebrity in his own profession.
Born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Ontario, to Russian-Jewish and Polish-Jewish immigrant parents, Gehry’s journey from a creative child building imaginary cities from hardware store scraps to becoming one of the world’s most celebrated architects is a testament to artistic vision, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to innovation.
Gehry’s creative impulses were nurtured by his grandmother, Leah Caplan, who entertained him for hours with scraps from her husband’s hardware store, building imaginary houses and futuristic cities on the living room floor. This early exposure to raw materials and construction would profoundly influence his later architectural philosophy, where corrugated steel, chain-link fencing, and plywood became hallmarks of his revolutionary designs.
After migrating to Los Angeles in 1949 to attend the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture, Gehry—who changed his surname from Goldberg in 1954—established his practice in Los Angeles in 1962, which eventually became Gehry Partners in 2001. His adopted city would become both his canvas and his muse, with more than 20 buildings dotting the Los Angeles landscape.
Gehry’s breakthrough came with the 1978 renovation of his own Santa Monica residence, where he wrapped a conventional 1920s pink bungalow in corrugated aluminum and chain-link fencing. The design shocked neighbors but launched his career into the architectural canon, eventually earning the prestigious Twenty-Five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects in 2012.
Jose María Ligero Loarte, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 1997, Gehry vaulted to a new level of international acclaim when the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in Spain. The architect Philip Johnson compared what resulted to Chartres Cathedral, according to the Los Angeles Daily News, and the museum became famous not just for its striking design but for its positive economic impact on the city, creating what became known as the “Bilbao Effect.”
Architect Frank Gehry — His crowning achievement
Walt Disney Hall. Photograph by Jon Sullivan
His crowning achievement in Los Angeles came in 2003 with the completion of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. With its warm, wood-lined interior and acoustics, Disney Hall is, first and foremost, a terrific place to hear music, but it is also a spectacle on the skyline, its riot of shimmering steel panels opening up like the petals of a giant flower under the Southern California sun. The building became as symbolic to Los Angeles as the Chrysler Building is to New York.
Throughout his career, Gehry received numerous awards and honors, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989, considered the field’s highest honor, as well as the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States. The Pritzker jury commended him as “always open to experimentation,” with a “sureness and maturity that resists being bound either by critical acceptance or his successes.”
Gehry’s work was not without controversy. Critics sometimes dismissed his buildings as resembling scrap-wood cities or questioned whether his flamboyant designs were appropriate for certain contexts. Yet his influence on contemporary architecture remained undeniable. His innovative use of computer-aided design software to realize complex curving forms changed how architects approached their craft, while his embrace of unconventional materials challenged long-held assumptions about what buildings should look like.
Sculpture by Frank O. Gehry in the shape of fish. Area of the Olympic Village of Barcelona, Catalonia.
Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga); <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
:Frank Gehry at MIT – Boston, jphilipg from Montréal, Canada, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Beyond architecture, Gehry’s creativity extended to furniture design, jewelry, and even liquor bottles. His influence reached popular culture—he even appeared as a character on The Simpsons. But it was his buildings that will endure as his greatest legacy: structures that blur the line between functionality and artistry, that challenge viewers to see the world differently, and that remind us that architecture can inspire wonder.
Architect Frank Gehry is survived by his practice, Gehry Partners, and by the countless buildings worldwide that continue to astonish, provoke, and delight. In transforming skylines from Los Angeles to Bilbao, from Prague to Paris, he proved that architecture could be both deeply functional and profoundly artistic—a living, breathing art form that shapes how we experience our cities and our lives.
Take a look at the life and legacy of legendary architect Frank Gehry, who redefined the art of the profession.
