RIP Frank

This week the architecture world is paying tribute to Frank Gehry who died at the weekend at home in Santa Monica, aged 96.

I am sure I am not the only architecture who thinks of the two Franks (the other of course being Frank Lloyd Wright) as the epitome of North American architecture.

Frank Gehry  had been a hero to me ever since I chose architecture as a career. His freeform creativity was at the edges of imagination, but practical to build. His fascination with furniture and fish and his use of familiar and cost effective materials was inspirational. His designs express the elements  of a design, whether residential or commercial. Architecture is primarily Art.

Sadly I never had the opportunity to meet him, although I like to think that I came close once in 1988.

Ian Athfield, John Blair, Rewi Thomson and I were sponsored by the New Zealand High Commission for a speaking tour of north America in conjunction with Te Māori exhibition moving from New York to the Field Museum in Chicago. We spoke about New Zealand Architecture.

On our day in Los Angeles we had an opportunity to visit Frank Gehry at his office, but tour leader Ath put his grown up hat on Ian and said we had to prepare for our first lecture at the Los Angeles School of Architecture that evening . The next day Frank had gone to Germany.

A year or so later Ath and Rewi collaborated with Gehry to make a joint submission for our National Museum design competition.  I would have loved to be able to look out my window and admire a world class museum designed by two wonderful New Zealand architects in collaboration with one of the world’s greats.

Sadly the competition judges did not agree.  Apparently the flimsy chocolate wrapping cladding may have won Gehry the competition for the Guggenheim in Bilbao, but in New Zealand we wanted a more permanent cladding.  Maybe if they had realised the strength, longevity and resistance of corrosion that defines titanium we could have had an architectural masterpiece on our waterfront.

Ah well.  I have been fortunate enough to see many of Frank’s other designs around the world including the Bilbao Guggenheim and Los Angeles music hall and his own home in Venice Beach.

I did get to stay with my girlfriend at the only Gehry commission in Spain resulting from Bilbao – the Marqués de Riscal hotel and winery in the Rioja Alavesa wine region.

When I first suggested to Miss M that we stayed there she look at the cost and said “no way.”  I must have looked suitably sad, as well as mentioning that staying at a hotel designed by Frank Gehry was on my bucket list, because when a special came up a couple of weeks later she booked it.  It was still very much higher than our normal accommodation budget and Miss M is still very amused by the look on the hotel porter’s face when he asked where my luggage and I held up the supermarket plastic bag that I had packed for the overnight trip and said ‘this is all’.

We both had a wonderful time – and one of us thinks it was worth the cost.  As well as the hotel we had a tour of the winery. All the product was corked. When it came for question time I asked if screw tops had been considered: ‘Oh no we can’t lose the romanticism of taking out the cork’ replied the host.

Speaking of the fine product, I did look at the huge mural of the first drawing Frank did of his design and wondered whether he had tried a bit of it himself.

Back to Frank’s work. His experiences are all too familiar to those who are self-employed. His early design for a shopping centre at  Santa Monica was quite conservative. When asked why, he replied that he wanted to be paid.

His only overstepping of the technical mark was the Disney Concert Hall, who’s metal cladding created excessive glare on surrounding properties. A light sandblasting was carried out to solve the problem. I don’t know who paid for that.

There we no technical problems after that. Visitor numbers to Bilbao because of the Guggenheim quadrupled. Tourists love strong designs. Just look at the Taj Mahal and the Sydney Opera House.

Despite restrictive regulations and planner’s zeal for their arbitrary rules, Gehry tells us to challenge the conventional and embrace joy and beauty.

RIP my favourite Frank.