Renowned for his complex architectural language and his ability to design buildings that are both entirely functional plus highly sculptural, Frank Gehry is one of the preeminent architects of the twentieth century, winning the most highly acclaimed awards in the field.

Raised in Toronto, Canada, Gehry studied at the University of Southern California and at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Gehry Partners was founded in Los Angeles 1962, and over the next four decades Gehry has produced some of the most significant buildings throughout the world, including museum, performance, academic projects as well as private and commercial works.

The complex exteriors of Gehry's museums reflect the new, complicated roles museums have assumed. No longer do they merely house beautiful exhibits, now they must also educate, entertain, enable interaction and provide places for quiet contemplation. In fulfilling all these requirements, Gehry's design have changed the entire museum-going experience. As pieces of art themselves, Gehry museums set the tone for the experience within. This experience is then further enhanced through the interplay between the architecture and exhibits. As an artist himself and a close friend of many artists, Gehry is sensitive to the needs of art. His museums have a distinct character and yet do not overwhelm the pieces displayed there.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain is probably Gehry's most famous museum design. A highly sculptural building clad in metal, stone and glass, it opened in 1997 and gained immediate worldwide fame for both Gehry and the city itself. The museum has proven to be the centerpiece in an overall urban redevelopment effort that has successfully transformed Bilbao from a little-known, declining industrial town, to a thriving tourist destination. During its first year of opening, the museum attracted 1.3m visitors. In its first two years of operation it generated more than US$170m in revenue.

The significance of Gehry's work is widely recognised. Paul Goldberger, the noted critic and architecture historian, wrote in The New York Times that Gehry's buildings are "...powerful essays in primal geometric form and Ématerials, and from an aesthetic standpoint they are among the most profound and brilliant works of architecture of our time."

The Design Process

The design process employed by Gehry Partners is based on extensive physical modeling at multiple scales and on the use of highly sophisticated three-dimensional computer models. The functional and aesthetic aspects of a building are explored while working simultaneously with the formal image at the urban scale and with materials and building systems at the detail level. Every project undertaken by Gehry Partners evolves in response to the specific programmatic and budgetary goals defined by the client and in response to the historical and social context of the site and the surrounding community.