fluences, he named sculptor Con-
stantin Brancusi before listing ar-
chitects Alvar Aalto and Philip
Johnson. Gehry’s work became
known for its unfinished quality.
His buildings were characterized
by a reliance on harsh, unfinished
materials such as chainlink, ex-
posed pipe, corrugated aluminum,
and utility-grade construction
board. He typically juxtaposedsuch
materials with simple geometric
forms.
By the end of the 1980’s, Geh-
ry’s designs included the Merri-
weather Post Pavilion of Music in
Columbia, Maryland, and the
Aerospace Museum in Exposition
Park in Los Angeles. Santa Monica
Place, a large shopping mall, in-
cluded an outside wall that was
three hundred feet long and six
stories tall, hung with a curtain of
chain link. Shaped like a fish, the
Fish-Dance Restaurant in Kobe,
Japan, became one of the archi-
tect’s most discussed buildings.
Gehry received one of his most
important commissions, the $100
million Walt Disney Concert Hall
for the Los Angeles Music Center,
in early 1989. Four months later,
on May 18, 1989, Gehry won the
Pritzker Architecture Prize for his
lifetime body of work. An inter-
national award, it is the most pres-
tigious honor in architecture.
Gehry, the twelfth Pritzker laure-
ate, accepted the honor at the
Todai-ji Temple in Nara, Japan.
Impact Gehry made his mark in architecture by us-
ing simple materials to solve the complex problems
of designing structures that were safe, useful, re-
spectful of context, and pleasing to a client. His
structures bridged the line between art and architec-
ture, and they came to define for many observers the
architectural style of modernism.
Further Reading
Friedman, Mildred, ed.Gehr y Talks: Architecture + Pro-
cess.New York: Universe, 2002.
Reid, Dennis, ed.Frank Gehr y.Toronto: Art Gallery
of Ontario, 2006.
Stungo, Naomi.Frank Gehr y.London: Carlton, 2000.
Car yn E. Neumann
See also Architecture.402 Gehry, Frank The Eighties in America
The Fish-Dance Restaurant in Kobe, Japan, became one of architect Frank Gehry’s most
talked about buildings.(663highland/cc-by-a-2.5)