The architect Frank Gehry has died

Los Angeles – American architect Frank Gehry has died at the age of 96. Gehry passed away after a brief respiratory illness at his home in Santa Monica, California. This was confirmed to the newspaper by his collaborator Meaghan Lloyd.

The paper described Gehry as one of the most stunning and original talents in the history of American architecture, as well as the most visible American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright. Many of his buildings are, according to the NYT, generally considered masterpieces, with a virtuosity that rivals 17th-century Baroque architecture.

The NYT identified Gehry's greatest success as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, built in 1997, which resembles a space vessel. The limestone, glass, and metal structure covered with titanium panels defies all traditional forms. Among his most famous works is also the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, which towers in the city center like a gigantic iron flower. Since its opening in October 2003, it has become a symbol of the city, although its appearance has been compared by some critics to a cone of french fries. However, the residents of Los Angeles have fallen in love with the building, and artists and audiences alike appreciate its acoustics.

"I resisted everything," Gehry stated in a 2012 interview with the NYT while explaining his opposition to certain dominant architectural styles at various times. "It's not about beauty or ugliness, but a certain disturbing kind of satisfaction that you won’t experience in someone else's spaces," described Gehry's work in 1982 by architect Philip Johnson.

Frank Gehry was born on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Canada, as Ephraim Owen Goldberg in a poor family of second-generation Polish Jews (his grandfather left Lodz in 1908). The family later moved to Los Angeles, where Gehry graduated from the University of Southern California in 1951. He then studied urban planning at Harvard University from 1956 to 1957.

In 1962, he established his own firm in Los Angeles, initially working on projects for shopping centers and similar commercial contracts. In 1989, he received the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture.