Frank Gehry has revolutionized architecture’s aesthetics, social and cultural role, and relationship to the city. His pioneeringwork in digital technologies set in motion the practices adopted by the construction industry today. The Canadian-born, Los Angeles–based architect’s work interrogates a building’s means of expression, a process that has brought with it new methods of design and technology as well as an innovative approach to materials. Gehry’s innovation and ability to push the boundaries of architecture garnered him the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE “Frank Gehry – A Retrospective” New aesthetics and meaning in architecture, through March 2016, LACMA Los Angeles www.lacma.org

Frank Gehry presents a comprehensive examination of his extraordinary body of work from the early 1960s—he established his firm in Los Angeles in 1962—to the present, featuring over 200 drawings, many of which have never been seen publicly, and 65 models that illuminate the evolution of Gehry’s thinking. Tracing the arc of his career, the exhibition focuses on two main themes: urbanism and the development of new systems of digital design and fabrication, including his use of CATIA, a software tool used in the aeronautics and automobile industries, which allows the digital manipulation of 3-D representations. This retrospective offers an opportunity to reflect on the development of Gehry’s work and to understand the processes of one of the great architectural minds.

Two overarching themes provide a framework for the wide-ranging presentation: Gehry’s revolutionary approach to urbanism and his equally revolutionary embrace of digital design and fabrication. Highlights of the show include Gehry’s famed Santa Monica home (1977–78 and 1991–94); the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. (1989–2003); the watershed Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain (1991–97); and his Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2005–14).

The show was organized by Paris’s Centre Pompidou, but new models representing work currently in design or construction have been added to the LACMA presentation. Among the projects on display will be Gehry’s design for Facebook’s campus in Silicon Valley, his renovation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the architect’s most recent residential commissions—both private homes and large-scale developments. Fittingly, the exhibition itself has been designed by Gehry Partners.

---

 

[frontpage_news widget=”1681″ name=”MORE FROM DESIGN & PRINTMATTERS”]