FRANK GEHRY: UNIQUE TO SAY THE LEAST

Walk of Fame | Martin Bierens

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I find that perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of a visitor’s experience to the museum is the building itself. People may go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, or the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone, but are they not also there to be in the space itself? After all, would the Louvre be the same without I. M. Pei’s Pyramid or the grand columns of the British Museum?

In a round-about way, Toronto actually has had a massive influence on museum architecture of the last half-century. Toronto is the birthplace of world-famous architect Frank Gehry, granted he now lives and works in California (but hey, so does Neil Young and we still claim him).

Frank Gehry (Source)

Frank Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg in 1929. He spent his childhood in the city and even as a child he showed a propensity for architecture. Young Gehry would use everyday material such as chain-link fencing, plywood, and corrugated steel to make small structures at his grandfather’s hardware store. Gehry’s use of steel is an aspect of his work that has persisted and has become one of the defining characteristics of his work.

It is somewhat difficult to put into words Gehry’s architectural style, his work has long been touted to defy categorization. Personally, as someone who has no academic background in architecture the best way, I would describe Gehry’s buildings as melting, flowing, futuristic, behemoth, spaceship-like structures. Once you become familiar with Gehry’s work it is very easy to identify that it could only be made by one man.

Guggenheim Bilbao (Source)

Some of his most prominent buildings are museums. He designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, arguably his most famous structure along with the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Other museums include the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, France, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, the Biomuseo in Panama City, Panama, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, the MARTa Herford Museum in Herford, Germany, and the upcoming Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

AGO, Galleria Italia (Source)

Those of us in Toronto are most familiar with his large-scale redesign of the Art Gallery of Ontario. The redesign of the AGO is actually not typical of Gehry’s work. Rather than his typical steel structures, the AGO features mostly laminated wood and glass as its main architectural components. The only typical Gehry-esque feature is the exterior staircase on the south side of the building. The atypical design is in part a result of the AGO’s goal, the museum did not want to construct a new building, rather expand on an existing building that had previously been expanded on six times since the 1920s. Gehry had the difficult task of combining a patchwork of structures into a cohesive whole.

This was achieved through a few additions to the building. The most prominent is the new façade of the building, the 200-metre Galleria Italia along Dundas Street. Other notable areas are the staircase in the Walker Court and the entrance along Dundas. Gehry moved the entrance to this location in order to help with the symmetry of the building, this area also features the unique wheelchair ramp from street level toward the ticket area.

Over his career Gehry’s work has generally received much critical acclaim, the AGO was no different. The Toronto Star called the redesign, “the easiest, most effortless and relaxed architectural masterpiece this city has seen,” while The New York Times' architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff, wrote of the AGO as, “Rather than a tumultuous creation, this may be one of Mr. Gehry's most gentle and self-possessed designs. It is not a perfect building, yet its billowing glass façade, which evokes a crystal ship drifting through the city, is a masterly example of how to breathe life into a staid old structure.”

Rendering of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (Source)

Even though Gehry is now 91 years old, he is still involved in his practice at Gehry Partners LLP. Though due to his age it is likely that the planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi may be his final museum. If this is the case, the scale and grandiosity of the structure will be a fitting end to an illustrious career.