What is the meaning inherent in the public buildings of Frank Gehry and why are they celebrated today but would probably never get started in the 50’s?
“I think the blurring of the lines between art and architecture has got to happen.” Frank Gehry 1995
vanity fair.com/culture/features/2010/08/architecture-survey-201008
*Guggenheim museum considered greatest building of the past 30 years. It reached new heights, there was nothing like it. One of the top tourist destinations in Europe.
* “The first photo’s of the near complete structure, which resembles a gargantuan bouquet of withering silver fish, rendered a seismic shift in the global art culture.”
* Gehry didn’t learn his skills as an architecture in high class schools which meant he was an ‘outsider’ from the beginning. He considered himself different from the architects who would call him an artist.
*inspired by Chartres Cathedral and Robert Rauschenberg.
* Gehry presented a solution to Modernism architecture on the late 20th Century. His work comes from a reaction to post modernism, a desperate need not to go there.
Abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2011/02/08/3131899.htm
*creates bold, innovative and controversial buildings that stand out.
*Best known projects Guggenheim Museum, Walt Disney concert hall, Dancing house.
*1989 awarded Pritzker Architecture Prize.
*Architectural firm, Gehry Partners employs over 120 people.
Pastexhibitions.guggenheim.org/gehry/biography.html
*”…he has developed a unique vocabulary that reflects both the urban vernacular and his long association with contemporary artists.”
*His earliest work came from a modernist idiom suggesting the varied influences of Harwell Hamilton Harris, Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright.
*1950’s design and architecture was focused on simpler, more organic and more comfortable approach to architecture and interiors.
*1950’s architecture was criticised for it’s sterility, and it’s disregard for regional building traditions.
*1950’s mass culture began to dominate and this created a blandness in culture as television network executives in particular wanted to cater to the largest audience possible so they shaped their programs to offend the least amount of viewers possible.
INTERVIEW
*when younger his grandmother would let him play with blocks she had gotten for her stove, they were jigsaw off cuts so all different sizes and weird shapes.
*tried chemical engineering but didn’t like it and wasn’t good at it.
* thinking about what he wanted to do he thought of what he liked and that was art, going to museums, music.
* out of a hunch he tried an architecture class.
* didn’t do great at first, flunked first class of perspective and was angry about that, then went back next semester to try again and got an a.
*also taking class in ceramics and art design
*his art teacher was getting his house designed by Raphael Soriano if Gehry wanted to meet him, gehry loved the drama and theatre of his work, he knew what he was doing, the starkness of his work.
*then took a night class in architectural design which he excelled in and was skipped to second year.
* he got excited at first about the social issues, comes from liberal family, loved the panacea, could make houses for the poor, cities, city planning.
*always said he didn’t want to make houses for rich people.
*began to find excitement in the forms and spaces and being able to conceive something then see it built and work with the craftsman, a mind game to get them motivated, like directing a movie, gets more exciting now that he has more freedom.
*up until late 70’s when he built his own house, he thought as an architect as a service/ business, hadn’t ad much freedom before then to do what he wanted and explore and play after having this freedom realized he couldn’t go back.
*house design was strange, chain link fence. He was trying to relate to the middle lass suburb that he was living in and when he dealt with it the neighbors thought he was making fun of them.
*range of creativity possible we should push it and explore it, takes an learned intuition, from looking around you understanding what is going on in the culture, understand what is going on and use it to create ideas and as inspiration.
*creativity is like poking a stick in a deep well, you poke around and every now and then you find something.
*he trys to make buildings that will inspire people, move people, get a reaction from people, not just to get a reaction but to get a positive reaction, is in the hope he will stay friends with the people who he makes these buildings for.
*he said that every artist coms across issues that are constraints these are then turned into positives by the artist they use them to make there project. He had to make a project with no constraints and found it very hard, couldn’t find relevance. Turn constraints into action.
* tried getting the energy of the first idea and drawing to the finished building.
*have to find ways that express how we live now, we move on from the past, moving forward while learning from the past.
Sketches of frank gehry
*changed the look of a field that was very conservative
*free willingness of art intertwined
*architect/artist takes risks like artists do
*director
*he has his own way of doing things
*tried to find a way of finding a way to express personal in a commercial field.
*likes making things with his hands.
*60’s aligned with artist didn’t hang with architects, his colleague’s would think he was silly for what he was doing but the art crowd didn’t and he liked what they did.
*artists didn’t stick to traditions, they were free, and pushed the limits.
*he first realized his style of architecture when he was creating his own house and it was innovative and daring and free with windows coming out and rooms all different sizes. Meanwhile he was designing Santa Monica place which was a shopping mall which was structured and clean the total opposite to his house.
*likes sketching and it’s freedom and hates computer creating.
*his colleagues think of architecture as x and a very straight forward way nothing out of the box as something with restrictions and rules.
*”everything’s been done before in one way or another the only thing that changes is technology.”
*annoyed by the rules his profession has as to how things are to be done, what can be done and what can’t. there is something threatening to letting go.
*injects feeling into objects. Expresses feeling into objects.
*finds inspiration everywhere, from a painting to a waste basket.
*grew up as a modernist where decoration was a sin, so he used materials to create character.
*channels light, paints his buildings with light.
*builds the buildings into the location doesn’t built in a location.
