Frank Gehry, Architect of the Guggenheim Bilbao and Global Design Icon, Dies at 96

 Renowned American architect Frank Gehry, considered one of the most influential and revolutionary figures in contemporary architecture, died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 96.

Meaghan Lloyd, Gehry’s chief of staff, confirmed his passing after “a brief respiratory illness.”

The legacy of the Guggenheim Bilbao:

His most celebrated work internationally is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, opened in 1997. The iconic titanium-clad building transformed the image of the Basque city and became the symbol of the urban renewal known as the “Bilbao effect.”

Gehry burst onto the architectural world's scene in 1978 with the completion of a house in Santa Monica, California, which he designed and lived in for four decades.

With its striking composition of metallic forms, the museum turned Gehry into “the most famous American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright” and introduced the world to an emotional and expressive architecture.

A pioneer of digital design:

Gehry was among the first architects to explore the potential of digital design in creating sculptural forms that would have been impossible with traditional methods.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao helped revitalize the city and made Gehry the most famous American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright

Among his notable works are the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003), the New World Center in Miami (2011) and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (2014), all recognized for their sculptural quality and technical daring.

Before global fame: a house that changed architecture:

Long before the Guggenheim, in 1978 Gehry attracted attention with an experimental house in Santa Monica. He transformed a modest bungalow into a radical project using wood, corrugated metal and wire mesh.

Gehry's sculptural New World Center concert hall opened in Miami in 2011

Philip Johnson described that architecture as “a kind of disturbing satisfaction that you don’t find in anyone else’s spaces.”

A body of work that rebelled against the rules:

Gehry was known for challenging dominant modernist dogmas. “I was rebelling against everything,” he stated in an interview, rejecting rigid and elitist architecture.

“I couldn’t live in a house like that,” he said of the modernist style. “It seemed arrogant and decadent. I just didn’t feel it fit real life.”

Between architecture and sculpture:

His buildings were often described as architectural sculptures. From the Vitra Design Museum in Germany to the Dancing House in Prague, Gehry pursued experimental forms that broke rules and expanded the architectural language.

He also faced criticism for the spectacular nature of his work and was even labeled a starchitect.

An emotional and democratic architecture:

Despite the visual impact, Gehry argued that his goal was always to create human, accessible spaces connected to real life. His architecture sought, in his words, to be “democratic in spirit and evocative of the messiness of human life.”

Prague's Dancing House of 1996, also known as Ginger and Fred, has a curved silhouette that resembles the arched back of a woman.

Childhood in Toronto and move to the U.S.

Born in Toronto in 1929 as Frank Owen Goldberg, he grew up in a working-class family and discovered his fascination for everyday materials while helping in his grandfather’s hardware store.

The 1988 Sirmai-Peterson House in Thousand Oaks, California, which Gehry clad in a soft gray metal

As a child, he played with a live carp his grandmother brought home from the market—an early inspiration for his famous fish forms. “She would put it in the bathtub… until she killed it and made gefilte fish.”

Education, name change and early commissions:

After studying ceramics, Gehry moved toward architecture and changed his last name “to avoid antisemitism.” He worked in several architecture firms before founding his own office in 1962, starting a career defined by experimentation.

The Bilbao effect and urban transformation:

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao redefined the relationship between architecture, cities and cultural tourism. With 1.3 million visitors in its first year, the museum proved that architecture could become an economic engine and an urban symbol.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, completed in 1997, breathed new life into the idea that striking architecture could be a popular attraction and an economic engine for struggling cities.

The global success sparked the so-called “Bilbao effect,” a phenomenon that many cities attempted to replicate.

Worldwide recognition and new criticism:

The Walt Disney Concert Hall strengthened his international reputation, although it also intensified debates over iconic architecture as a cultural product.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, completed in 2003 in Los Angeles, was another high-profile triumph for Gehry, who grew up in a cramped apartment a few miles away.

Nevertheless, Gehry considered such debates part of the evolution of contemporary architecture.

Later years and new projects:

At 90, he was still working on major international projects, including a concert hall in Los Angeles, a headquarters for Louis Vuitton and new cultural buildings in Europe.

The 76-story residential tower that Gehry designed at 8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan, completed in 2011, was conceived as part of an architectural triptych that included two nearby buildings

Despite his global fame, Gehry defended an ethical and human vision of the profession: “You go into architecture to make the world a better place,” he said in 2012. “You don’t go into it to feed your ego.”

And he added: “That comes later, with the press and all that. At first, it’s pretty innocent.”