Frank Gehry was born on February 28, 1929 in Toronto, Canada. His parents, Irving and Thelma Caplan Goldberg were both very creative people and Gehry was exposed to an artistic and inventive environment from a very young age. His social life however, was clouded by anti- Semitism and teasing throughout most of his teen years and affected him greatly throughout the rest of his life. He was teased as “fish” by many of his peers and developed a sort of obsession for the creatures which would only wear off through his sculptures in the 1980’s. For a large part of his life, Frank Gehry struggled with depression and paranoia of the future and these struggles are reflected in his work. Some may believe that his buildings are “weird” just for the sake of being weird but Gehry’s inventive and sculptural eye allows him to express his pain, anger and view of the world the way an artist would on a canvas. He not only creates buildings, but art. . After suffering from an economic blow in the 1940’s his family moved to Los Angeles in the hopes of finding a better life. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Gehry was forced to work to support his parents and was unable to attend school until later when he attended U.S.C. He was later drafted into the U.S Army in 1954 where he eventually began designing men’s dayrooms. These temporary structures mostly consisted of corrugated metal, chain link fencing and plywood – materials which would continue to reappear throughout Gehry’s work in the future. In 1956, Gehry began to attend Harvard Graduate School of Design but could not appreciate the style of teaching and in 1961 he traveled to Europe where he discovered a love for Romanesque building such as Worms Cathedral in Germany (something which he had...
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...e uses history, art and instinct to express his inner thoughts and struggles and is able to free himself in this way. I believe that he has begun to take the next step in architecture which is to create buildings as an art form. Not all architects will create buildings as different as Gehry’s but I believe that we will soon see many more buildings that are meant to portray the Architects feelings and emotions woven in with form and function. Frank Gehry has already mastered this skill and, as I said, is not simply and architect but an artist as well.
Works Cited
Bletter, Rosemarie H., Coosje van Bruggen, Mildred Friedman, Joseph Giovannini, and Thomas S. Hines.
The Architecture of Frank Gehry.
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Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Student Resources in Context. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Gehry draws his inspiration from famous paintings such as the Madonna and Child which he qualifies as a “strategy for architecture” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 42) and which he used as an inspiration for a project in Mexico . Through his interpretation of the paintings and artwork, Gehry looked for a new kind of architecture. His search for a new type of architecture culminated in 1978 with his own house in Santa Monica. What was once a traditional Californian house would be redesigned to become one of the most important and revolutionary designs of the 20th century, giving Gehry international prestige and fame. Frank Gehry’s “Own House” uses a mixture of corrugated metal, plywood, chain link and asphalt to construct a new envelope for an existing typical Californian house. This house has been inspired by Joseph Cornell, Ed Moses and Bob Rauschenberg. Gehry comments on his house by saying that there was something “magical” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) about it. He admits having “followed the end of his [my] nose” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) when it came to constructing the “new” house, which led Arthur Drexler, former Director...
Frank Lloyd Wright is widely known and is considered to be America’s greatest architect. He is considered, in the eyes of many, to be the most consequential American architect of the 20th century. “Strongly individualistic, flamboyant, and arrogant, Wright designed and built more than four hundred structures that reflect his architectural genius. Directly and indirectly, he heavily influenced twentieth century architecture with his diverse use of geometry in his designs” (Eisenman).
“Urban, II.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit : Gale, 1998. Student Rescorces in Context. Web. 24 Mar.2014
Le Corbusier was a Swiss-French artist mostly known for his work in architecture, but also practiced some in painting, design, and writing. He was closely associated with the new “modern” architecture movement and was a leader in the new field of urban planning in the mid 20th century. The works he produced can be found in Europe, the United State, and India. His work was both widely praised and criticized throughout his life and after his death. In addition to producing many great works of architecture, Le Corbusier led a full and very interesting personal life.
It is the new decade after the end of world war two and modernism is a well-established practice. Its pioneers and spearheads are prevalent figures looming over the new architects and designers who are trying to make their mark in the shadows of such historically influential people. With new technologies and materials emerging from the world wars the next era of modernism had started to evolved, bringing with it philosophies and ideas which seemed far removed from those of the pioneers of modernism “What emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s was an expanding synthesis of questions utterly removed from the confident statements of the pioneers.”(Spade 1971,10) Two significant buildings were designed in the 50's, both of them for educational institutes and to house students of architecture, there were both designed in completely different styles and methods. The first is Ludwig Mies van der Rohes' Crown Hall, finished in 1956 and designed as a part of a campus master plan for the Illinois Institute of technology in Chicago. Mies' design for Crown Hall is one of his most realised expressio...
Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueras, northern Catalonia, Spain. His father, Salvador Dali y Cusi, a state notary, was a dictatorial and passionate man. He was also fairly liberal minded, due to a short but intense period of renaissance, and he accepted his son's occupation as a painter without much resistance to the idea.
“Jesse Owens.” UXL Biographies. Detroit: U*X*L, 2003. Student Resources In Context. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.
It appears that from the very beginning, Frank Lloyd Wright was destined by fate or determination to be one of the most celebrated architects of the twentieth century. Not only did Wright possess genius skills in the spatial cognition, his approach to architecture through geometric manipulation demonstrates one aspect of his creativeness. Forever a great businessman, Wright seemed to know how to please his clients and still produce some of the most innovative and ridiculed buildings of the early century. While the United States appeared to be caught up in the Victorian style, Frank Lloyd Wright stepped out in front to face the challenge of creating "American architecture" which would reflect the lives of the rapidly growing population of the Midwest United States. Howard Gardner in his book "Creating Minds" does not make any mention of Frank Lloyd Wright, an innovator who drastically influenced architecture of the twentieth century around the world.
"Clyde Barrow." UXL Biographies. Detroit: U*X*L, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 2 Dec. 2013
"The 1940s." Gale Student Resources in Context. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Student Resources in Context. Web. 5 May 2014.
Frank Lloyd Wright was arguably one of the best architects of the 19th and 20th centuries. His works ranged from traditional buildings typical to the late 1800’s to ultramodern designs (Official Site 1). He had a great knowledge of the land and his buildings were practical in terms of their surroundings. Wright’s appreciation and love for nature was a key characteristic, and a strong influence in his architecture.
Wilmoth Lerner. 4th ed. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Student Resources in Context. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Frank Lloyd Wright has been called “one of the greatest American architect as well as an Art dealer that produced a numerous buildings, including houses, resorts, gardens, office buildings, churches, banks and museums. Wright was the first architect that pursues a philosophy of truly organic architecture that responds to the symphonies and harmonies in human habitats to their natural world. He was the apprentice of “father of Modernism” Louis Sullivan, and he was also one of the most influential architects on 20th century in America, Wright is idealist with the use of elemental theme and nature materials (stone, wood, and water), the use of sky and prairie, as well as the use of geometrical lines in his buildings planning. He also defined a building as ‘being appropriate to place’ if it is in harmony with its natural environment, with the landscape (Larkin and Brooks, 1993).
... artist/designer, so this makes it impossible for me to discuss the person or people who put this idea to life but the building itself is what attracted me to perform my research and base my essay on.