Canadian architect Frank Gehry, famed for his iconic Guggenheim Bilbao Museum design, died on Friday at age 96 in his Santa Monica, California home from a respiratory illness. His work transformed cities like Bilbao and Los Angeles, blending metal and technology in innovative structures. Gehry, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1989, leaves a legacy of buildings that revitalized urban environments.
Frank Gehry, born Ephraim Owen Goldberg in Toronto in February 1929, moved with his family to Los Angeles in his teens due to his father's health issues. Naturalized American, he studied at L.A. City College, the University of Southern California, and Harvard, though he did not complete the latter. He changed his surname to Gehry at the suggestion of his first wife, Anita Snyder, whom he married in 1952 and with whom he had two daughters, to avoid antisemitic discrimination.
In 1975, after divorcing and marrying Berta Aguilera, with whom he had two sons, he remodeled his Santa Monica home using humble materials like corrugated metal and cardboard, inspiring his 1969 Easy Edges furniture collection and defining his deconstructivist style. He opened his firm Frank O. Gehry & Associates in 1962 and won the Pritzker Prize in 1989.
His masterpiece, the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, opened in 1997, using titanium to create a flowing structure that revitalized the city, spawning the 'Guggenheim effect.' 'We will always be deeply grateful for the magnificent and bold building he designed for Bilbao,' said director Miren Arzalluz. Other creations include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003), the Vitra Design Museum in Germany (1989), the Dancing House in Prague, the Marqués de Riscal winery in Elciego (2006), and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2014).
Gehry received the Prince of Asturias Award in 2014 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 from Barack Obama, who praised him: 'Frank's work teaches us that... they can elevate our spirits.' His posthumous project is the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, slated for 2026. Basque President Imanol Pradales and Bilbao Mayor Juan Mari Aburto highlighted his enduring impact on the region.
