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. 

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.

On running Gehry Partners as a business

Gehry highlighted the fact that his eponymous firm, Gehry Partners, has "developed an interesting business model over the years" that "works to everyone’s benefit, including our clients’, and that means everyone gets paid, everyone gets bonuses and raises," according to the architect. He added, however, that the arrangement of a practice that engages firmly and fairly with its clients is somewhat uncommon among his peers. "A lot of my friends don’t run the office enough like a business," Gehry tells Davidson, "so they struggle, and they take jobs in China, where you don’t get paid. I won’t take a job unless we get fully paid and we like the people."

Gehry also added, "We don’t have publicists, like many of my friends do." For Gehry, “architecture’s a gentleman’s profession. You don’t do that.” 

On working in China, Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi

While Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi has faced criticism from a variety of fronts, including from some of the artists whose work will be exhibited at the museum, for the treatment of workers who will be erecting the structure, he explains that the firm has "a human-rights lawyer who represents us there. We made that a condition of our work, and the client agreed. We haven’t built anything there yet, but we’ll monitor that."

Gehry additionally explained to Davidson why he doesn't take on work in China or Saudi Arabia. In the case of China, he "had a bad experience" working in China as a result of the National Art Museum of China project that he lost to Jean Nouvel in 2012, "so it would be hard for me to feel comfortable going there to do a project." 

Gehry explained further: "We’ve been asked to do stuff in Saudi Arabia. I went there a couple of times, and they tried to be nice, but it was somewhat insulting. They offered me lots of projects, and they said, 'Pick a project, you design it, bring us the design, and if we like it, we’ll pay you.'"

On carrying a foundational design idea through construction

Gehry speaks in detail regarding the 8 Spruce tower project in New York City throughout the interview. The project, one of Gehry's under-sung designs, succeeded, according to the architect, because the firm is often able to "[figure] out how to take tightly budgeted commercial projects and turn them into architecture. I’ve always done this." 

He explained that the tower's facade was a turning point in recent skyscraper design. "Technology now allows us to do towers with curves. That was unheard of before," Gehry states, adding, "We opened the door. We were building it within tight budgets, and the computer allowed us to build the [Spruce Street] tower with no change orders on the skin." 

For the project, Gehry explains, he wanted to channel Bernini's sculpture of Santa Teresa. "I wanted to do a metal skin," Gehry states, "and I wanted to fold the metal façade so that I could create bay windows. I had no clue how I was going to do it. I was thinking about Bernini’s sculpture of Santa Teresa, with all those sharp, edgy folds. Michelangelo folds are softer, and they would have been easier, but I thought Bernini folds would be better for this building. We met with the fabricators from Italy and worked with them for two years, and we came up with folds that are the same scale as the terra-cotta panels on the Woolworth Building. Buildings next to each other should talk."

On ways of working and technology

"We build tons of models," Gehry explains, "I don’t work on the computer. I don’t even know how. I have a hard time with that thing. My way of searching is to have a dream — a fantasy, I guess you’d call it. You start to explore and build models to see if you can achieve it, without knowing that you can."

This specific way of working led the firm to develop Gehry Technologies. Gehry explains that "The system we created means that everyone can read off the same 3-D files and see exactly how it has to be done. Instead of the contractors taking our designs and figuring out how to build it — then we have to do change orders if they get it wrong, which costs money — this way we can show them exactly how to build it and stay on budget." 

The approach, to put things simply, allows Gehry to deliver his complex projects efficiently and on-budget. "We use the tools to develop a process that has cost control built in as we design," Gehry adds, "I would put our process up against anyone in the field in terms of cost control." 

On the the bird flipped 'round the world

Regarding Gehry's infamous 2014 interview in Spain — where he said "In this world we are living in, 98 percent of everything that is built and designed today is pure shit" — Gehry explains that when he was asked the question, "I looked at him and my right hand was shivering. I felt like Dr. Strangelove. My arm just went up, and there it was. I felt like I had to explain it, so I said, 'Why would you ask that question, when 98 percent of the built environment doesn’t even aspire to architecture? Showy? It’s different. I think you’re asking an insulting question.' And I left it at that."

On the real story behind the fish motif

Gehry is known around the world for his golden fish sculpture on the Barcelona waterfront beside the Torre Mapfre complex from 1992. 

Over the years, the fish motif found its way, in bits and pieces, into other examples of Gehry's works, especially as the architect's love of curved titanium panels took off. And while Gehry has previously tied the fish idea to memories from his youth, he offers another potential explanation for the work in the interview: Postmodernism. Gehry explains, "I didn’t intend to use the word fish, but I got pissed off at a conference where all my architect friends were becoming postmodernists and I said, 'Why do you have to go back to anthropomorphism and Greek temples? Why don’t you go back 300 million years all the way to fish?'”