Frank Owen Gehry, CC, FAIA (/ˈɡɛəri/; born Frank Owen Goldberg; (1929 -02-28)February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-born American architect, residing in Los Angeles.
Generally people are afraid. They pretend they aren’t; it’s part of the denial. We’re all part of it. As much as we pretend otherwise, we want what’s comfortable, and we’re afraid of the different. We’re afraid of change. It happened in Los Angeles, too, when the first models of Disney Hall were shown. You should have heard the outcry from the public, critics and press. It was called “broken crockery,” “outlandish” and blah blah blah. Of course now the feeling is different.
You have to build up a credibility before the support comes to you.
I found myself starting architecture with a deep social, Jewish, liberal conscience, and the belief that architecture is for the people. It was a do-gooder base; I was born and raised that way. I was for blacks, whites, Italians, Poles, whatever.
When you were a kid, if you went to the Montreal Forum or a hockey game at Maple Leaf Gardens, which I did, there was a great feeling. The new stadiums don't have it. Why don't they have it? Building codes.
I do my best to choose carefully. If I don’t feel that collaboration is going to happen, I say no. Think about it. These projects can involve a five-to-seven-year partnership. If you don’t feel comfortable with someone, you can’t get rid of them. I just walked away from a job for that reason. Every one of these projects is an emotional investment, like falling in love. You’ve got to believe in it and you’ve got to like the people you work with.
What I have learned about museum buildings is that buildings have to have iconic presentations. The position of the art museum vis-a-vis other civic buildings needs to be hierarchal in the community. It has to be equal to the library and the courthouse.
The present is filled with flotsam and irony and chaos and disorder in all arenas, political and sociological. I think we have to work in the present even if it's awkward, even if it's not necessarily good, even if we don't understand it ourselves. You only find out 10, maybe 20 years later what was going on.
Green issues have been used as a marketing tool. Sometimes these green claims are completely meaningless.
In the Renaissance there wasn't a distinction. Bernini was an artist and he made architecture, and Michelangelo also did some great architecture.
Let the experience begin!
The back of Saint Peter's is one of the finest pieces of architecture I've ever seen.
I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don't get a lot of work sometimes.
You have to do every detail on every bloody piece of the building. You have to know how the engineering works. You have to know how the fittings go together. You have to master the mechanical, electrical, acoustical - everything.
Just because you are an architect and make decent buildings does not mean that you can suddenly become a set designer for one of the best avant-garde dancers in the world.
I never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building - I'm not.
You have to be optimistic. I still have doubts and conflicts, but the bottom line is, I believe in the future.
One of my greatest influences is the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.
It should begin much earlier with arts education in the American school system, which is sadly deficient.
When I was a kid, my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn't think I would amount to anything. My mother also.