From: davidc@wa-wd.com   
      
   https://apnews.com/article/architect-frank-gehry-died-obit-gugge   
   heim-disney-a023a30877e6e9644dd9ad8f1f4217f4   
   By  JOHN ROGERS   
   Updated 3:29 PM CST, December 5, 2025   
      
   LOS ANGELES (AP) — Frank Gehry, who designed some of the most   
   imaginative buildings ever constructed and achieved a level of   
   worldwide acclaim seldom afforded any architect, has died. He was 96.   
      
   Gehry died Friday in his home in Santa Monica after a brief   
   respiratory illness, said Meaghan Lloyd, chief of staff at Gehry   
   Partners LLP.   
      
   Gehry’s fascination with modern pop art led to the creation of   
   distinctive, striking buildings. Among his many masterpieces are the   
   Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; The Walt Disney Concert Hall in   
   Los Angeles and Berlin’s DZ Bank Building.   
      
   He also designed an expansion of Facebook’s Northern California   
   headquarters at the insistence of the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.   
      
   Gehry was awarded every major prize architecture has to offer,   
   including the field’s top honor, the Pritzker Prize, for what has been   
   described as “refreshingly original and totally American” work.   
      
   Other honors include the Royal Institute of British Architects gold   
   medal, the Americans for the Arts lifetime achievement award, and his   
   native country’s highest honor, the Companion of the Order of Canada.   
      
   The start of his career in architecture   
   After earning a degree in architecture from the University of Southern   
   California in 1954 and serving in the Army, Gehry studied urban   
   planning at Harvard University.   
      
   But his career got off to a slow start. He struggled for years to make   
   ends meet, designing public housing projects, shopping centers and   
   even driving a delivery truck for a time.   
      
   Eventually, he got the chance to design a modern shopping mall   
   overlooking the Santa Monica Pier. He was determined to play it safe   
   and came up with drawings for an enclosed shopping mall that looked   
   similar to others in the United States in the 1980s.   
      
   To celebrate its completion, the mall’s developer dropped by Gehry’s   
   house and was stunned by what he saw: The architect had transformed a   
   modest 1920s-era bungalow into an inventive abode by remodeling it   
   with chain-link fencing, exposed wood and corrugated metal.   
      
   Asked why he hadn’t proposed something similar for the mall, Gehry   
   replied, “Because I have to make a living.”   
      
   If he really wanted to make a statement as an architect, he was told,   
   he should drop that attitude and follow his creative vision.   
      
   Gehry would do just that for the rest of his life, working into his   
   90s to create buildings that doubled as stunning works of art.   
      
   As his acclaim grew, Gehry Partners LLP, the architectural firm he   
   founded in 1962, grew with it, expanding to include more than 130   
   employees at one point. But as big as it got, Gehry insisted on   
   personally overseeing every project it took on.   
      
   The headquarters of the InterActiveCorp, known as the IAC Building,   
   took the shape of a shimmering beehive when it was completed in New   
   York City’s Chelsea district in 2007. The 76-story New York By Gehry   
   building, once one of the world’s tallest residential structures, was   
   a stunning addition to the lower Manhattan skyline when it opened in   
   2011.   
      
   That same year, Gehry joined the faculty of his alma mater, the   
   University of Southern California, as a professor of architecture. He   
   also taught at Yale and Columbia University.   
      
   Imaginative designs drew criticism along with praise   
   Not everyone was a fan of Gehry’s work. Some naysayers dismissed it as   
   not much more than gigantic, lopsided reincarnations of the little   
   scrap-wood cities he said he spent hours building when he was growing   
   up in the mining town of Timmins, Ontario.   
      
   Princeton art critic Hal Foster dismissed many of his later efforts as   
   “oppressive,” arguing they were designed primarily to be tourist   
   attractions. Some denounced the Disney Hall as looking like a   
   collection of cardboard boxes that had been left out in the rain.   
      
   Still other critics included Dwight D. Eisenhower’s family, who   
   objected to Gehry’s bold proposal for a memorial to honor the nation’s   
   34th president. Although the family said it wanted a simple memorial   
   and not the one Gehry had proposed, with its multiple statues and   
   billowing metal tapestries depicting Eisenhower’s life, the architect   
   declined to change his design significantly.   
      
   If the words of his critics annoyed Gehry, he rarely let on. Indeed,   
   he even sometimes played along. He appeared as himself in a 2005   
   episode of “The Simpsons” cartoon show, in which he agreed to design a   
   concert hall that was later converted into a prison.   
      
   He came up with the idea for the design, which looked a lot like the   
   Disney Hall, after crumpling Marge Simpson’s letter to him and   
   throwing it on the ground. After taking a look at it, he declared,   
   “Frank Gehry, you’ve done it again!”   
      
   “Some people think I actually do that,” he would later tell the AP.   
      
   Gehry’s lasting legacy around the world   
   Ephraim Owen Goldberg was born in Toronto on Feb. 28, 1929, and moved   
   to Los Angeles with his family in 1947, eventually becoming a U.S.   
   citizen. As an adult, he changed his name at the suggestion of his   
   first wife, who told him antisemitism might be holding back his   
   career.   
      
   Although he had enjoyed drawing and building model cities as a child,   
   Gehry said it wasn’t until he was 20 that he pondered the possibility   
   of pursuing a career in architecture, after a college ceramics teacher   
   recognized his talent.   
      
   “It was like the first thing in my life that I’d done well in,” he   
   said.   
      
   Gehry steadfastly denied being an artist though.   
      
   “Yes, architects in the past have been both sculptors and architects,”   
   he declared in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “But I   
   still think I’m doing buildings, and it’s different from what they   
   do.”   
      
   His words reflected both a lifelong shyness and an insecurity that   
   stayed with Gehry long after he’d been declared the greatest architect   
   of his time.   
      
   “I’m totally flabbergasted that I got to where I’ve gotten,” he told   
   the AP in 2001. “Now it seems inevitable, but at the time it seemed   
   very problematic.”   
      
   The Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, first proposed in   
   2006, is expected to finally be completed in 2026 after a series of   
   construction delays and sporadic work. The 30,000-square-foot   
   (2,787-square-meter) structure will be the world’s largest Guggenheim,   
   leaving a lasting legacy in the capital city of the United Arab   
   Emirates.   
      
   His survivors include his wife, Berta; daughter, Brina; sons Alejandro   
      
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