Frank Owen Gehry CC FAIA (/ˈɡɛəri/ GAIR-ee; né Goldberg; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American architect and designer.

His most famous works include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, and the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington D.C[3] These buildings are characterized by their sculptural, often undulating exteriors and innovative use of materials such as titanium and stainless steel.

[11] With these scraps from her husband's hardware store, she entertained him for hours, building imaginary houses and futuristic cities on the living room floor.

[6] Gehry's use of corrugated steel, chain-link fencing, unpainted plywood, and other utilitarian or "everyday" materials was partly inspired by spending Saturday mornings at his grandfather's hardware store.

[11] In the fall of 1956, he moved his family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studied city planning at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design.

These progressive ideas about socially responsible architecture were under-realized and not respected by his professors at Harvard, leaving him to feel disheartened and "underwhelmed".

[6][19] Gehry ultimately dropped-out of his graduate program at Harvard to start a furniture manufacturing company Easy Edges, which specialised in creating pieces with cardboard.

[22] His earliest commissions were in Southern California, where he designed a number of innovative commercial structures such as Santa Monica Place (1980) and residential buildings such as the eccentric Norton House (1984) in Venice, Los Angeles.

In 1989, Gehry received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, where the jury described him: "Always open to experimentation, he has as well a sureness and maturity that resists, in the same way that Picasso did, being bound either by critical acceptance or his successes.

Hailed by The New Yorker as a "masterpiece of the 20th century", and by legendary architect Philip Johnson as "the greatest building of our time",[31] the museum became famous for its striking yet aesthetically pleasing design and its positive economic effect on the city.

[32] Gehry also designed the open-air Jay Pritzker Pavilion (2004) in Chicago's Millennium Park;[33] and the understated New World Center (2011) in Miami Beach, which the LA Times called "a piece of architecture that dares you to underestimate it or write it off at first glance.

In addition to unrealized designs for the Corcoran Art Gallery expansion in Washington, DC, and a new Guggenheim museum near the South Street Seaport in New York City, Gehry was notoriously dropped by developer Bruce Ratner from the Pacific Park (Brooklyn) redevelopment project, and in 2014 as the designer of the World Trade Center Performing Arts Center in New York City.

[45] Some stalled projects have recently shown progress: After many years and a dismissal, Gehry was recently reinstated as architect for the Grand Avenue Project in Los Angeles, and though his controversial[46][47][48] design of the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC has had numerous delays during the approval process with the United States Congress, it was finally approved in 2014 with a modified design.

[54][55] In February 2015, the new AU$180 million building for the University of Technology Sydney was officially opened, whose façade has more than 320,000 hand-placed bricks and glass slabs.

[58][60] Notable Gehry-designed buildings completed in the 2020s include the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC[61] and the LUMA Arles museum in France.

"[63] Said to "defy categorisation", Gehry's work reflects a spirit of experimentation coupled with a respect for the demands of professional practice, and has remained largely unaligned with broader stylistic tendencies or movements.

[64] With his earliest educational influences rooted in modernism, Gehry's work has sought to escape modernist stylistic tropes while remaining interested in some of its underlying transformative agendas.

Continually working between given circumstances and unanticipated materializations, he has been assessed as someone who "made us produce buildings that are fun, sculpturally exciting, good experiences", although his approach may become "less relevant as pressure mounts to do more with less".

[67] However, a retrospective exhibit at New York's Whitney Museum in 1988 revealed that he is also a sophisticated classical artist who knows European art history and contemporary sculpture and painting.

His works are celebrated for their “raw aesthetic”[69] that combines everyday materials in unexpected ways, creating structures that blur the line between functionality and artistry.

His design for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, revitalized the city, serving as a prime example of how architecture can drive economic and cultural renewal.

The museum’s dramatic curves and shimmering titanium panels are defining features of Gehry’s style, emphasizing movement and fluidity.

As one collaborator noted, “Sometimes he produces something for the client that they don’t realize they want because he listens so well.”[74] Gehry himself credits curiosity as a cornerstone of his process, stating, “You’re being curious.

[77][78][79] Moreover, socialist magazine Jacobin pointed out that Gehry's work can be summed up as architecture for the super-wealthy, in the sense that it is expensive, not resourceful, and does not serve the interests of the overwhelming majority.

In 2014, he curated an exhibition of photography by his close friend and businessman Peter Arnell that ran from March 5 through April 1 at Milk Studios Gallery in Los Angeles.

[91] In 2012, Gehry designed the set for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's opera production of Don Giovanni, performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In April 2014, Gehry designed a set for an "exploration of the life and career of Pierre Boulez" by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which was performed in November of that year.

[104] Its client list includes Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and Zaha Hadid.

During a trip to Oviedo, Spain to accept the Prince of Asturias Award in October 2014, he received a significant amount of attention, both positive and negative, for publicly flipping off a reporter at a press conference who accused him of being a "showy" architect.

He also contributed to the 1985 Venice Biennale with an installation and performance named Il Corso del Coltello, in collaboration with Claes Oldenburg.