Archinect - News

'You just have to want to do it': Frank Gehry profiled in TIME Magazine

2023-04-06T14:54:00-04:00

[...] standing on the third floor of the Guggenheim during its 25th–anniversary celebrations in October 2022, even Gehry seemed a little awed. “When you look at your old buildings, you’re very critical of every little detail,” he says, looking around. “And I love it, I think. I find I love it.”

In a recent profile on Frank Gehry, TIME met up with the 94-year-old architect at one of his most celebrated buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. As Gehry revisited the halls his team designed more than three decades ago, he opened up about design principles, technical challenges, and his thoughts on movement in design.

Video via TIME on YouTube

Frank Gehry gives Harvard Business Review a masterclass in delivering on time and on budget

2023-01-03T11:38:00-05:00

Archinect’s editorial is no stranger to covering project delays. In the second half of 2022 alone, we covered news of construction setbacks at the International African American Museum, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. However, such high-profile examples are far from outliers but are instead representative of an endemic issue in the AEC industry.

According to research by University of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, whose team analyzed 16,000 construction projects around the world, only 8.5% of projects are delivered on time and on budget. In search of an explanation, Flyvbjerg and his colleague Dan Gardner turned to what at first seemed an unexpected resource: Frank Gehry.

At first glance, Gehry’s spectacular, unorthodox exercises in form and materiality should inevitably lie within the 91.5% of projects that fail to meet their time or budget...

The Guggenheim Bilbao announces $129 million Basque country expansion

2022-08-02T15:34:00-04:00

The Guggenheim Bilbao’s long-gestating plans to expand to a Spanish natural reserve may finally come to fruition. Earlier this week, officials with the government of the Biscay province, whose capital is Bilbao, revealed that they were planning to put €40 million toward an expansion in Urdaibai, an estuary to the east of Bilbao that has hundreds of plant species and thousands of human residents.

The new expansion will be connected to Frank Gehry’s original museum complex via a tunnel, according to the local outlet El Correo. The Guggenheim has been promoting the idea on and off since 2008 while it forged ahead with its other either failed or repeatedly-delayed (and not to mention politically-tinged) satellite projects under the leadership of outgoing Director Richard Armstrong.

As ARTnews reported, the Bilbao expansion will be an adaptive reuse design split between two former industrial sites in Guernica and Murueta. The total €127 million ($129 million) construction is expected to add at least 900 jobs and 148,000 annual visitors to the local economy in a hopeful repeat of the original expansion's famous effect. In a press statement, Armstrong said it will potentially be the "first important museum of the 21st century" and would not be "an architectural icon but a landscape one."

Norman Foster says he still hasn't lost that old, familiar feeling

2022-04-05T12:03:00-04:00

If I enjoy doing what I do, why would I change it? Of course, at any point with any of us, there’s always the other side of the coin […] I get the same buzz from designing buildings, working with people, educational workshops, working with the UN heading their Forum of Mayors, engaging with civic leaders, writing, drawing, sketching. I’m privileged to have many such opportunities […] I think they’re my lifeblood, yes.”

Norman Foster, who will turn 87 this year, was at the Guggenheim Bilbao to talk to The Guardian’s Tim Lewis about his lifelong love of cars and upcoming exhibition there titled “Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture.” Foster told the writer he sees the exhibition as “almost like the requiem for the age of combustion,” adding that, at this point in his career, “I feel as young as the people that I’m working with and engaging with and sharing passions.”

Foster also discussed his reaction to some of the changes in worklife necessitated by the coronavirus, and the ability of his office to get back on its feet following a year of economic downturn.

Earlier on Archinect: Norman Foster on the impact of pandemics on our cities

“We were all surprised by the way in which the technology has worked,” he said. “And the energy and resourcefulness of the team. But I guess it’s also made us acutely aware of the importance of physically coming together. The lessons of history are that an event like that ...

Highlights from Justin Davidson's candid interview with Frank Gehry

2020-02-03T17:27:00-05:00

In a recent interview for New York magazine, architecture critic Justin Davidson interviews Frank Gehry on his work past, present, and future, highlighting the nearly 91-year-old architect's unwavering penchant for working through complex design and aesthetic ideas while still being able to deliver projects for clients, often on surprisingly tight budgets.

Previously on Archinect: An Interview with Frank Gehry, Who Turns 90 Today, Upon Receiving the Neutra Award for Professional Excellence. Photo: Exterior model view of the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood, interior concert configuration. Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

In the wide-ranging interview, Gehry also dishes on his reluctance to work for oppressive regimes like China and Saudi Arabia, his distaste for publicity, and his ongoing efforts to build complex and intriguing buildings.

A few of Gehry's choice comments follow below.

Previously on Archinect: 1991 Frank Gehry on being at the right place at...

Social Media: Architecture's double-edged sword

2019-12-24T12:00:00-05:00

Before the internet and social media, architecture projects and the work of architects were viewed and documented differently. Similar to other professions like the culinary arts and fashion, the public's understanding and exposure to these industries has changed as new technologies have proliferated. The public's experience of the built environment, for example, is no longer reliant on physically visiting a space. Instead, anyone at any time can see iconic architectural feats in the palm of their hand.

For architects, this accessibility can be a good thing, as it enables their projects to travel faster and, even, into the hands of potential clients. However, how are design professionals shaping their work in response to the influx and demand for online sharing? How have architects adapted their designs and marketing models to satisfy online platforms like Instagram and Twitter? Have architects and designers succumbed to "Instagrammable Architecture" and finding ways to "design Ins...

Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao lights up covered in Jenny Holzer projections this week

2019-03-22T15:45:00-04:00

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Jenny Holzer: Thing Indescribable, a survey of work by one of the most outstanding artists of our time. This exhibition features new works, including a series of light projections on the facade of the museum, which can be viewed each night from March 21 to March 30.

"The artist’s aim is to engage the public by creating evocative spaces that ask viewers to consider and potentially define their positions on contentious issues including the global refugee crisis, violence against women, and systemic abuses of power," reads the description of the new exhibition Jenny Holzer: Thing Indescribable.

"The exhibition features newly created works, including electronic signs animated by robotic assemblies, paintings, and light projections. Writing by Basque, Spanish, and international poets will be projected onto the museum’s facade after dark from March 21 to March 30, creating a series of nighttime public events."

View this post on Instagram Indescriptible es la mejor palabra que describe la exposición “Jenny Holzer. Lo Indescriptible" #Inauguración #HolzerGuggenheimBilbao Patrocina #FundaciónBBVA
A post shared by Museo Guggenheim Bilbao (@museoguggenheim) on Mar 22, 2019 at 4:02am PDT

Frank Gehry's buildings are no strangers to becomin...