Frank O. Gehry, the influential architect whose groundbreaking buildings reshaped skylines and revived cities around the world, died Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., the New York Times reported.
He was 96.
His chief of staff, Meaghan Lloyd, said he died after a brief respiratory illness.
Gehry’s most famous work, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, became an international phenomenon when it opened in 1997.
The museum’s twisting, metal-clad curves drew 1.3 million visitors in its first year and provided a financial boost for a region that had struggled with industrial decline.
The project inspired developers and civic leaders worldwide to chase what became known as the “Bilbao effect” — the idea that dramatic, eye-catching architecture could ignite tourism and economic growth.
The Bilbao museum was followed by another milestone: the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
Its steel exterior, evoking wind-filled sails, stood in sharp contrast to neighboring midcentury buildings.
Inside, the smooth, sweeping forms recalled the Baroque architecture of the 1600s.
For Gehry, the project carried personal meaning; it rose only a few miles from the Los Angeles apartment where his family once lived.
In 2000, the Experience Music Project opened in the Seattle Center. Designed by Gehry, it resembles a “smashed guitar,” a reference to Seattle rock-legend Jimi Hendrix. The EMP was rebranded as the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in 2016.
Success brought scrutiny. Some critics argued the Bilbao museum’s exuberant exterior overshadowed the art inside.
Others said Gehry’s most dramatic designs — and the work they inspired — gave developers new tools to drive up real estate prices.
Even as he entered this phase of global celebrity, Gehry often said his intent was rooted in emotional expression and accessible design, not spectacle.
After Bilbao and Disney Hall, Gehry took on larger and more ambitious projects. In 2003, developer Bruce Ratner hired him to design parts of Atlantic Yards — later called Pacific Park — a 22-acre project in Brooklyn that included the future Barclays Center arena.
The design went through multiple revisions as costs rose, and Gehry ultimately left the project.
He and Guggenheim director Thomas Krens reunited on a massive new Guggenheim branch planned for an island off Abu Dhabi.
Still under construction, the museum is designed to be ten times the size of the Guggenheim’s New York home, organized around a central atrium flanked by stacked galleries and conical spaces that open into outdoor gardens.
Even as his projects scaled up, Gehry continued to revisit ideas that defined his early work.
His 2011 residential tower at 8 Spruce Street in Lower Manhattan, with its rippling steel façade, was conceived as part of a trio with the nearby Woolworth and Municipal Buildings.
Other designs evoked the experimentation of his early Santa Monica house, which he famously wrapped in chain link, plywood and exposed materials to challenge conventions about “proper” architecture.
In Washington, D.C., Gehry’s design for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial sparked fierce debate after it was unveiled in 2010.
The limestone columns and metal tapestry — inspired by Eisenhower’s Kansas upbringing and Gehry’s early work — drew objections from architectural traditionalists and Eisenhower family members.
Gehry revised the plan, replacing farmland imagery with an abstract depiction of Pointe du Hoc and adding a bronze statue.
The memorial was dedicated in 2020.
By then, Gehry was 91. He and his wife, Berta Aguilera, had left the Santa Monica home that helped establish his reputation and moved into a new residence overlooking Santa Monica Canyon.
Designed with his son Sam, the house used heavy timber framing and angular forms, retaining the raw, improvisational character Gehry explored throughout his career.
Despite his age, Gehry continued working.
He collaborated with conductor Daniel Barenboim on the Pierre Boulez Hall in Berlin, a compact performance space built inside a 1950s neoclassical building. In 2021, he completed the Luma Foundation building in Arles, France — a twisting tower of stainless-steel bricks inspired by the region’s rocky terrain.
In his final years, Gehry was preparing major projects for luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault, including an 82,000-square-foot Louis Vuitton flagship in Beverly Hills and a new exhibition hall near the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.
He was also finalizing a 1,000-seat concert hall for the Colburn School of Music, located near Disney Hall in Los Angeles.
Throughout his career, Gehry said he wanted architecture to be emotionally resonant and grounded in real life.
“You go into architecture to make the world a better place,” he told The Times in 2012. “A better place to live, to work, whatever. You don’t go into it as an ego trip. That comes later, with the press and all that stuff. In the beginning, it’s pretty innocent.”
Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto in 1929.
His family lived modestly, and he spent time working in his grandfather’s hardware store — a place he later credited for his interest in everyday building materials.
His grandmother would return from the market with a live carp for gefilte fish, and Gehry recalled watching it swim in the bathtub, shaping the fish imagery that appeared repeatedly in his work.
His father suffered a heart attack during Gehry’s teenage years, which prompted the family to move to Los Angeles.
After serving in the Army, Gehry studied at USC and shifted from ceramics to architecture after an influential class.
He adopted the surname Gehry to avoid antisemitism and worked at Gruen Associates before opening his own office in 1962.
By the 1960s and 1970s, he had become a central figure in the Los Angeles arts and architecture scene, drawing inspiration from artists who worked in industrial spaces and embraced raw, improvisational environments.
His early projects — including the Danziger Studio and Ron Davis’s trapezoidal workspace — reflected this spirit.
Gehry is survived by his wife, Berta; their sons, Sam and Alejandro; his daughter, Brina Gehry; and his sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson.
His daughter from his first marriage, Leslie Gehry Brenner, died in 2008.
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