Frank Gehry

Originally born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929. He was born to Thelma Caplanski, of polish decent, and to Irving Goldberg, of Jewish heritage. He was one of two children including his sister Doreen. He and his father made business calls when he was very little, so he learned the business life early. However, he attributes his success and inspiration to his mother, who first introduced him to the arts, and his grandmother, who encouraged his artistic talent by helping him build small buildings out of sticks and glue. When asked what his biggest influence is after his grandmother, Gehry says fish. This comes from an old nick name he had in grade school.

He holds dual residency in Canada as well as America, since he was born in Toronto, but later the family moved to LA because of his fathers health problems.
Gehry was very fortunate to have many opportunities to study all around the United States. These schools included USC school of Architecture, where he graduated from in 1954, as well as Harvard Graduate School of Design where he studied city planning. 

After graduating from Harvard, he was married to Anita Snyder in 1952 before serving in the US Army in 1954. He says that she was the one to convince him to change his name to Gehry, which after his families approval, he did. Unfortunately they were divorced in 1966, after having two daughters together.However, in 1975, he was married again to his current wife, Berta Aguilera. They have two sons.

Deconstuctivism is the best way to describe Frank Gehry's style. Some times referred to as Decon. Architecture, Frank Gehry's style goes beyond the current boundaries of structure and redefines how the public views buildings. He is a post-structuralist; he believes very much that he has no rules, that he is not required to "reflect certain social or universal ideas" in his art. His work may seem, to some, unfinished, but in stark contrast, it is finished according to the California "funk" movement of the 60s and 70s. There are no strings attached to his art, it is simply Frank Gehry.  

His most famously known piece of work would be the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It was constructed in 1997. It has given this Spanish city a real name and has made it an attraction for tourists from all over the world.

During the construction of this building, Gehry encountered some firsts. This was the first building that he used titanium on. This created even more critic's and more importantly, even more admirers of his work. Some consider every building made my him "sculpture", a sort of artistic view of how he sees the world. Many critics view the Guggenheim as his "crowning glory", his masterpiece. 

Another one viewed as a masterpiece is the Dancing House in Prague. This is personally my favorite building done by Gehry. This building portrays movement because of the windows and how they seem to move up and down with how they are placed on the building. Also,the building sways and curves as if they are dancers stuck in time. Well in fact, in Gehry's drawings and sketches two words appear constantly, Fred and Ginger. These are the names of the two tower's in the Dancing House. Ginger, being the girl in the dancing couple, has a glass dress which connects to a tower, Fred, being the leader of the couple. It was named this after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It building was completed in 1996, and is a center for cultural revival and focus in Prague. 

One of the more interesting buildings that Gehry has done is the Chiat-Day Building. It was built during 1985-1991. 

It was built for the Chiat/Day Advertising Agency; however it now houses other agencies. It is most know for its large scale binoculars that serve as a car and human entrance, as well as conference rooms in the upper levels. The remarkable building is located in the Venice area of Los Angeles. It is one of the newest Frank Gehry's and most definitely a tourist attraction.
Frank Gehry has changed the way architecture is viewed in today's society.He has the unique ability to build things with geometric shapes and interesting planes, but with a functional armature as a building. He has built something with bones and then "stretched" titanium, metal, and wood over these "bones" to make a useful and interesting building.