interviews Frank as he turns 80 and faces the end of starchitecture.
"I've had a disappointing year, couple of years, with Grand Avenue and Brooklyn," he said in a wide-ranging conversation in his office last week in which he was by turns ruminative, weary and hopeful. "All my life I've wanted to do projects like that, and they never came to me. And then all of a sudden I had two of them. I invested the last five years in them, and they're both stopped. So it leaves a very hollow feeling in your bones."
news flash - he's going to stay in his iconic santa monica house after all.
11 Comments
frank is turning 80? good god, that's great for him, but i don't know if i ever want to live to be that old...
i saw him last night at a party given for his and his friend's birthdays. he looked great, robust and he was surrounded by mainly art community friends with maybe one or two architects in sight against nearly two hundred artists. frank ultimately feels more comfortable with artists than architects which i don't blame him for tons of reasons.
i could have talked to him but thought that conversation would lead nowhere and i did not want to be the opportune shoptalker which he would have no patients in a party like that. plus, i had all kinds of interesting people to talk to as well.
gehry is a #1 complainer. he always complains about projects. i remember him complaining about moca going to isozaki too.
he used to feel more comfortable with artists than with architects when he started his career as well... or so I read somewhere
he always was. these were the same people last night...
so, it seemed like a complete home run for him. i'd like to see him going back to his roots here. he has done a lot for this city and architectural scene. hawthorne's article was easy one, but so true.
Happy Birthday, Frank!
yeah...!
altough i overheard him complaining about his age too.;.)
Orhan, I don't know if they were the same people you met in that party (not Claes, of course), but I remembered I had copied some time ago an article where he talked about some of his early friends:
"Snubbed by his peers in the early years, Gehry found both approval and companionship among artists. He befriended Kenny Price, Ed Moses and Ron Davis (for whom Gehry built a studio/house) and later collaborated with sculptors Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen as well as Richard Serra. Gehry could relate to artists. He told Architectural Record (in an uncharacteristically long interview earlier this year) that he was "intellectually intrigued with their process, their language, their attitudes, their ability to make things with their own hands," whereas with fellow architects, he felt like "an outsider."
from Salon, 1999
a lot of criticism can be leveled against some of the late work here, but for my money, the guy is the one 'star' who really got the formula right and cared about creating an office as much as the work. he's been a tremendous force in our profession and has literally helped drag a whole generation into the future with him.
kudos and happy birthday frank!
Well Zaha and Brangelina were there too, for the record...
i wouldn't doubt. and they would be just blended in.
we left early even before the cake. there were tons of people watching other people. me and my friends, we had a lot of things to do next day requiring a real early wake up and good night's rest.
highlight of my evening was, me introducing two armenian friends to each other, an architect and a painter, and our picture taken together with me in the middle. for me, it was the most beautiful picture for many reasons.
i am not talking about the public party at the geffen, but at a private residence.
Is there any Gehry building that doesn't leak? Are they be liable because of the intricate geometries that make quality workmanship and detailing all but impossible?
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