Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum on the Bilbao waterfront changed the way people designed buildings.
I’ve never claimed to be an aficionado of anything other than food, so it is hard to imagine a building taking my breath away.
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That’s what happened to The Boss, he says, when he laid eyes on Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain, about 20 years ago.
Its flowing sculptural forms, impossible curves and dramatic profiles from multiple angles are all clad in titanium panels – a visual feast, he reckons, and it was difficult to take his eyes off it.
It’s not the visual feast I’m looking for, to be honest, but he’s been reviewing some of Frank’s works after the renowned architect died in early December at the age of 96.
Some call the Bilbao museum the most influential building of the late 20 th century, and it certainly rejuvenated a declining industrial city, turning it into a global cultural destination.
Gehry was reputed to have been inspired by the decaying industrial structures of Bilabo in designing the museum, while his office adopted the software from the French aviation company, Dassault, to radically alter approaches to building design.
The Boss later visited Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, with its shimmering surfaces in similar style to Bilbao. It was designed before Bilbao but took longer to complete and was opened in 2003.
Gehry was a huge admirer of both classical music and jazz, with an equally passionate interest in acoustics; The Boss found tickets to a concert there and said “He knew what he was doing, General.”
Gehry’s use of computer-aided design technology allowed him to realise complex organic forms that appear to be caught in motion, their surfaces rippling and folding as though they defy gravity – and convention.
He also designed “the wobbly walled” Dr Chau Chak Wing building at the University of Technology in Sydney, inspired, he said, by a tree house.
Gehry was born in Toronto to Polish Jewish immigrant parents, and his early years were spent with his grandmother, building imaginary cities on the living room floor from scraps of wood from his grandfather’s hardware shop. This use of humble materials to create three-dimensional forms continued to influence his architectural philosophy throughout his life.
His early work used everyday materials creatively and gained him notoriety – and the instinct never entirely left him. He developed a series of cleverly designed chairs from corrugated cardboard, which were light, cheap, comfortable and attractive – and became so instantly popular that he withdrew them from the market because he thought they would distract him from architecture.
According to The Boss, Gehry even appeared on The Simpsons, where his cartoon character crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it away – only to realise he had happened upon the perfect design.
His final monument will be the vast Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, finally nearing completion after many years of design and construction. The Boss says it’s on his bucket list, but I won’t be going with him. Woof!
The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles: The Boss says it sounds as amazing inside as it looks outside.
Photo by
Nick Ut
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