The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 28 December 2020
by Paul Goldberger
With the design and construction of the Guggenheim museum in the Basque city of Bilbao, Frank Gehry wowed the architectural world, spawned an entire tourist industry, and created the phenomenon of the Bilbao Effect, the drive for cities around the world to build spectacular works of architecture to draw visitors and income. It is a trend, particularly in museums and performance spaces, that so permeates architectural culture as to become the butt of jokes even in The Simpsons in which Gehry himself appeared to poke fun at himself, a move he came to regret for its belittling of the genuine artistic aspirations in his work. His spectacular architectural accomplishments have, nevertheless, often been controversial, particularly with those who believe that modern architecture is elitist and unappealing. Gehry's best work is inspirational, soaring and sensitive to the experience of space. His lesser accomplishments are chaotic and impenetrable. His appeal to the rich and the famous mask his genuine concern with accessibility, beauty and innovation. Sometimes, his work contradicts his personal left-leaning politics of equality while he pursues a position within the elite of his profession as well as genuine Hollywood celebrity. Gehry was in his 80s when Paul Goldberger published this 2015 biography and overview of his work. Late in a productive career for any architect, but his health and energy meant that some of his notable works would still not be completed until after the bio appeared.
Gehry was born Frank Goldberg to a struggling working class family in Canada. While they didn't have much, Gehry proved himself an inventive young person. He led a lucky early career through ceramics and art, eventually becoming an aspiring architect. He had mentors, idols and guides along the way. His personal understated and modest charm helped smooth his way through family struggles and career opportunities so that, by the time he had a stint in the army, he was producing his first clever designs for military structures, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie modernism. Then, as he grew, Gehry developed his own once idiosyncratic style. His family had by then moved to Los Angeles where Gehry would spend the rest of his career and life. While Gehry was drawn to the heights of elite architecture, cultivating and eventually enjoying the interest of the venerable Philip Johnson and others, the LA art scene also drew him. He loved the inventive and adaptive style of modern artists. He hoped to learn something from their freedom and technique while carefully avoiding the notion that he himself was an artist rather than architect. The latter concerns itself with practical problems and requires adaptation to site, budget, client whims, and the basic notion that a building should not leak, should shelter its inhabitants, and to serve its practical purpose. Gehry felt strongly that this was a prime matter in his work, despite the impression he gives of being impulsive and whimsical in his profoundly unusual shapes and materials. Inspired also by artists, he was not obsessive about detail or finish. His work expressses its structure in unexpected ways and shows a kind of polish one might call wabi-sabi.
Despite his determination to create inspiring space and design on budget (the Bilbao Guggenheim, despite its impression of excess, was finished on time and under budget), Gehry still has the image of a Starchitect, bold designs not necessarily accessible to its public, wildly expensive, domestic architecture for the very wealthy, elite. In reality, the work is often bizarre, but his spaces are genuinely inspirational. He has attempted, not always successfully, to remain true to his drive to create architecture that is not just artistically but financially accessible. His office continues to produce profoundly affective designs, though perhaps his own greatest work is behind him. Still, works as impressive (and expensive) as the Fondation Louis-Vuitton museum in Paris came while he was in his eighties, well beyond any reasonable retirement date (architecture, like art, seems to be one of those professions in which one can continue to produce great work well into otherwise old age). Gehry remains mildly controversial. No historically minded public really wants to see his work plunked down upon an established landscape. Even at the time of this writing, he faces ire from Los Angeles preservationists as his office proceeds with a project whose demolition of a mid-century commercial gem (a historically designated building) was personally defended by Gehry at public hearings. The notion goes against Gehry's own idea of himself as being adaptive and respectful of a project's surroundings. So the man, modest and engaging, can be also abrasive and self-guided in his old age. You love him or you hate him, perhaps, but he will have left behind him a profoundly idiosyncratic and effective colletion of works.
Paul Goldberger is an architecture writer and critic who worked closely with Gehry, his office, his family, his acquaintances, his employees, and his children, over years to produce this biography. Goldberger himself comments that he was not a writer of biographies. But what has resulted is a sensitive biography, approved but not edited by its subject. It is sympathetic to Gehry but not to a fault. Gehry's contradictions are evident but not presented as fatal flaws. His long life and career have had their successes and failures. His family life is damaged by his drive to work (not unlike so many driven and successful creative personalities). His urge to "play" with his clients has led to some excessive passages of long unfinished projects, but rarely to animosity among the participants. Gehry's career isn't an obvious choice for an enlightening biography, but its presentation of the LA art scene, the long challenges and hard work of a successful architecture career, and the multitude of associated characters who inevitably, profitably or not, contribute to such a career, is surprisingly compelling reading. Goldberger interweaves that with his already well-developed eye for art and space that has made his criticism so successful. Perhaps, one day, there will be an addendum to cover Gehry's later years, but for now, this must be the definitive work on one of the most notable architects of the last century.
Also by Goldberger: [Why Architecture Matters]