structure

Frank Gehry, who died Friday at 96, challenged the notion that buildings needed to behave themselves — creating artful, strange, kinetic combinations of structure, material, form and light, and transforming cities in the process. Here are 10 of his most famous structures that pushed the boundaries of architecture, culture, taste and technology.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, 1997

Curves and angles mix in this section of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

(Javier Bauluz / Associated Press)

While only one piece of a much larger urban transformation, this uproarious structure, perched at the edge of the Basque city’s industrial waterfront, utterly transformed its image, giving birth to the overused phrase “Bilbao Effect.” Its curving, ever-changing titanium facade — with offset panels catching the light and wowing millions of visitors — became a symbol of a new era of baroque, digitally-driven architecture. (Gehry and his team worked with CATIA, a software formerly employed by aircraft designers.) Inside, a dizzying atrium ties together a fluid series of galleries, all sized for contemporary art’s expanding scale. “I didn’t mean to change the city, I just meant to be part of the city,” Gehry told the design magazine Dezeen in 2021. The project would achieve the former, and transform the field of architecture in the process.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003

The Walt Disney Concert Hall is a visual anchor in downtown Los Angeles.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Dreamed up by Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, in 1987, the project wouldn’t be completed until 2003. But it was worth the wait. Now the cultural and visual anchor of downtown Los Angeles, Disney’s riot of steel sails reflect rippling waves of music, Gehry’s love of sailing, fish scales and other nautical themes, and the frenetic city around it. Inside, the boat-like, wood-clad hall has an intimate, vineyard-style seating arrangement, with its superb acoustics shaped by Yasuhisa Toyota. Don’t forget the 6,134-pipe organ, which resembles a box of exploding French fries. Lillian Disney, a connoisseur of flowers, would die before the hall was finished, but its hidden rear garden is centered around the “Rose for Lilly” fountain, composed of thousands of broken blue and white Delft china pieces.

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014

The “Fondation Louis Vuitton” has 3,600 glass panels that form its 12 sails.

(Frederic Soltan / Corbis via Getty Images)

Commissioned by LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, set in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, is wrapped in 12 massive, curved glass sails, hovering above a white concrete “iceberg.” The museum’s billowing forms, which help lighten its considerable scale, were realized via head-spinning structural complexity: None of its 3,600 glass panels are the same, while each timber and steel supporting beam is curved uniquely. Inside and out, Gehry orchestrates a meandering gallery of paths and multistory overlooks that frame both art and landscape. While marooned on Paris’ western edge, the spectacular building has nonetheless become a cultural icon in a city where that’s very hard to achieve.

Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1989

Frank Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum helped inspire other inventive buildings on the campus.

(Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty)

While tame in comparison to his later work, Vitra marked Gehry’s transition from rough-edged, industrial bricolage to sculptural spectacle. Its tumble of white plaster forms — cubes, cylinders, sweeping curves — seem to freeze mid-collision, as if the gallery had been torn apart by seismic forces. (Just a year before, Gehry had been included in MoMA’s “Deconstructivist Architecture” exhibition, but he always rejected that label.) The structure also helped launch a string of impressive experiments on the Vitra campus, including buildings by Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Nicholas Grimshaw, Álvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron and more.

8 Spruce (formerly New York by Gehry), New York, 2011

8 Spruce in Manhattan has 76 stories.

(Don Emmert / AFP via Getty Images)

Gehry’s first skyscraper, 8 Spruce, reimagined the Manhattan high-rise as a kind of gleaming, pleated fabric, its shifted stainless steel panels rippling downward, catching daylight in a constantly shifting display. A buff brick base contains a public school and retail frontages, activating the street and helping establish the financial district as a legit residential neighborhood. Inside, apartments are far more rational, organized around generous windows that frame the city. Only 30 of the building’s 76 floors had been constructed when the Great Recession hit. For a time, the developer, Forest City Ratner, considered cutting the building’s height in half. But by 2010, the structure was back on.

Dancing House (Fred and Ginger), Prague, 1996

The Dancing House stands out amid Prague’s 19th century facades.

(Insights / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Designed with Czech architect Vlado Milunić, the building — a major step forward for Gehry, who increasingly dabbled in digital design — pits a leaning glass tower against an upright, solid partner, creating a kinetic duet that instantly earned the nickname “Fred and Ginger.” The complex’s opaque tower is clad in cream-colored concrete panels, stepping rhythmically with protruding windows that drift off-center. Its frenetic steel-ribboned crown, which stands out amid 19th century facades along Prague’s Vltava River, is nicknamed “Medusa.” The glass tower — emerging from a cluster of angled columns — cinches inward at its waist, bulging outward again as it rises, like a figure leaning into a twirl. Traditionalists panned the project when it first opened, but it’s now core to the city’s identity.

Stata Center, Cambridge, Mass., 2004

The Ray and Maria Stata Center on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stands out for its form — and the lawsuit the university filed over leaks and cracks, which was settled amicably.

(Steven Senne / AP)

The Stata Center tilts, twists and fractures, its brick towers — referencing traditional Cambridge architecture — leaning into planes of glass, mirrored steel, aluminum, titanium, corrugated metal and plywood. The village-like building’s spatial looseness was part of a concerted effort to encourage chance encounters and interdisciplinary exchange at the school. The fragmented forecourt echoes the building around it, with skewed paving patterns, angled retaining walls and unpredictable sight lines. In 2007, MIT filed suit against Gehry’s firm and the general contractor Skanska USA, alleging persistent leaks, cracking masonry, poor drainage and sections where ice and snow slid off the building. The lawsuit was “amicably resolved” in 2010, but it represented one of several instances in which Gehry’s ambition would butt up against practical realities.

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, 1993

The Weisman Art Museum.

(Raymond Boyd / Getty Images)

Perched on a bluff above the Mississippi River at the University of Minnesota, the museum was a trial run for Bilbao and Disney, without the help of advanced digital tools. Its stainless steel facade unfurls toward the river in faceted, reflective forms that contrast with the building’s campus-facing facade, a series of various-sized cubes wrapped in earth-toned brick, matching the rest of campus. Inside, a series of flexible galleries support changing exhibitions. The museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, a Minneapolis-born entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist who broke sharply with conventional wisdom to support a Gehry-designed building that would loudly announce the arts and become an artwork in its own right.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, 2004

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion stands out in the center of Millennium Park. The main stage can accommodate a full orchestra and 150-person chorus.

(Andia / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The centerpiece of Chicago’s wildly successful Millennium Park, the bandshell’s billowing 120-foot proscenium, supported by a web of aluminum arms, is fronted by dozens of torqued stainless steel ribbons, which exuberantly frame the stage. The ribbons connect to an overhead trellis of crossed still pipes that house lights and speakers, while the stage itself is sheathed in warm Douglas fir, and includes a colorful light projection system (first planned for Disney Hall, but scuttled for budget reasons) that transforms the pavilion’s face. Seating 4,000, the Pritzker envelops a “Great Lawn,” with room for another 7,000.

DZ Bank Building, Berlin, 2000

Curves abound in the DZ Bank Building.

(Henri-Alain Segalen/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

A stone’s throw from the Brandenburg Gate, DZ’s stone facade aligns seamlessly with its blocky neighbors on Pariser Platz, providing little hint of its shocking interior. A curved stainless steel conference hall, clad inside with a riot of warm wood panels, resembles an angry sea creature, its humpbacks, saddles, bulges, tucks and pinches creating one of the most kinetic building forms this author has ever seen. The piece dominates a soaring atrium, capped with a curved, crystalline glass roof. Locals nicknamed the split-personality building the “Whale at the Brandenburg Gate.” It remains one of the architect’s most underrated masterpieces.

Long before the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall made him a global celebrity, L.A. served as Frank Gehry’s laboratory — where he could test materials, shift building types and blur the lines between art and architecture. These projects reveal a designer learning to bend norms and shape spatial narratives, in the process shifting the cultural landscape of the city. (He died Friday at 96 at his home in Santa Monica.)

From modest homes to major cultural institutions, Gehry’s L.A. buildings capture an architect inventing a language that would eventually transform places around the world.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003

(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Dreamed up by Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, in 1987, the project wouldn’t be completed until 2003. But it was worth the wait. Now the cultural and visual anchor of downtown Los Angeles, Disney’s riot of titanium sails reflect rippling waves of music, Gehry’s love of sailing, fish scales and other nautical themes, and the frenetic city around it. Inside, the boat-like, wood-clad hall has an intimate, vineyard-style seating arrangement, with its superb acoustics shaped by Yasuhisa Toyota. Don’t forget the 6,134-pipe organ, which resembles a box of exploding French Fries. Lillian Disney, a connoisseur of flowers, would die before the hall was finished, but its hidden rear garden is centered around the “Rose for Lilly” fountain, composed of thousands of broken blue-and-white Delft china pieces.

Gehry Residence, Santa Monica, 1978

The Santa Monica home Frank Gehry designed for himself.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Gehry’s own Santa Monica home remains one of the most influential houses of the 20th century — a modest Dutch Colonial reimagined through an envelope of chain-link fencing, gray corrugated metal, exposed wood framing and sharply tilted glass planes. It challenged the idea of domestic respectability, treating the house as an open-ended experiment rather than a finished object. The home became a keystone of Gehry’s work, and a symbol of rebellion against architectural polish and formality.

Loyola Law School, Westlake, 1978-2002

The Girardi Advocacy Center at Loyola Law School boasts a 22-ton, 65-foot stainless steel mirrored tower.

(David Hill / Loyola Marymount University)

Built over two decades beginning in 1978, Loyola is a playful, village-like compilation of structures clustered around a central plaza; both an internal world distinct from the car-dominated cityscape around it and a reinterpretation of stuffy academic buildings and quadrangles. Its stucco, concrete, metal and glass structures showcase Gehry’s evolving language of shifting scales, fractured forms, unpretentious materials and sculptural components. Filled with surprising patios, alleys and landings, it’s one of his forays into postmodernism: brightly colored buildings contain, among other features, gabled brick rooflines, extra-bulky columns, long cantilevers and cylindrical steel elevators.

Chiat/Day Building, Venice, 1991

It’s understandable why the Chiat/Day Building has been nicknamed the “Binoculars Building.”

(Los Angeles Times)

Nicknamed the “Binoculars Building” and once the headquarters for advertising agency Chiat/Day, this building faces Main Street in Venice. It was, according to legend, a last-ditch effort. Struggling to please his clients, Gehry reached across his desk for a model of a theater and library created by his friends, the sculptors Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, in the shape of a pair of binoculars. The three collaborated on the matte black, three-story binoculars, clad in black rubberized paint. While mostly decorative, they serve as a pedestrian entryway and contain conical conference rooms. Behind them, Gehry designed bulky offices — one clad in dark, rough masonry, the other in irregular white stucco — but they’ve since been overshadowed by the quirky entry sculpture.

Norton Residence, Venice, 1984

Norton Residence.

(Bryan Chan / Los Angeles Times)

This house dives headfirst into the counterculture of Venice. Its irregular volumes, pastel colors, elevated decks, jagged rooflines and collage of materials — stucco, corrugated metal, broken tile — echo the local mashup of artist studios, surf shacks and light-industrial sheds. Inside, spaces unfold with shifting geometries that privilege visual surprise over domestic convention. In front, an elevated writers’ room, perched on a narrow base, resembles a lifeguard stand, its large windows allowing the original owner (who was a writer) to survey the neighborhood while working.

Temporary Contemporary (Now Geffen Contemporary at MOCA), Downtown, 1983

By converting a police vehicle warehouse into the Temporary Contemporary in 1983, Gehry helped popularize the reuse of industrial buildings in the museum world. Instead of overwriting the building’s industrial character, he retained exposed trusses, concrete floors and vast, column-free volumes, ideal for contemporary art. Strategic interventions — mechanicals, skylights, entrances and ramps — were surprisingly understated, considering Gehry’s track record. The result was both monumental and flexible, capable of supporting installations that MOCA itself couldn’t.

Air and Space Gallery, Exposition Park, 1984

The Air and Space Gallery at the California Science Center was Frank Gehry’s first major public work.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

This project in Exposition Park allowed Gehry for the first time to translate his sensibilities into a larger public building. Completed in 1984, the hangar-like space blended industrial materials — metal cladding, stucco, exposed structure and utilitarian forms — with folded, sculptural masses and cheeky artistic moments. Most notably, a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter jet is suspended from the facade in takeoff, angled upwards from the south wall. It distilled his concept for the museum of “frozen explosion,” rupturing the idea that architecture and artifact should be distinct.

Gemini G.E.L. Studios, West Hollywood, 1976 onward

Gehry’s work for Gemini G.E.L. — one of the most important printmaking workshops in the country — is reflective of his deep engagement with L.A.’s art community. Completed between 1976 and later phases, the project transformed industrial sheds into light-filled studios where artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg produced major works. Gehry introduced clerestory windows, skylights, large exposed trusses, raw concrete floors and metal cladding, elevating the utilitarian spaces without erasing their industrial character.

Edgemar Center, Santa Monica, 1988

The Edgemar Center in Santa Monica is a thriving shopping plaza.

(Bryan Chan / Los Angeles Times)

This project transforms a 1920s industrial complex (the Edgemar Dairy and Ice Company buildings) in Santa Monica into a cultural and retail hub. Gehry respected the industrial bones while adding sculptural flourishes — punctured facades, angled walls, stepping rooflines, and strange material contrasts, such as lime green tiles next to raw steel columns. “I interviewed 16 designers, and the best were all already influenced by Frank,” said Edgemar’s founder, Abby Sher. “So I thought why not get the real one?” All is organized rather classically, with human-scaled plazas and passages punctuated by quirky campaniles. It’s a good example of how public space emerges not only from buildings but from the gaps between them. The Santa Monica Museum of Art eventually left the center, but the shopping plaza is still thriving.

Hopper Compound, Venice, 1983

Designed for artist and actor Dennis Hopper, the house is part residence, part creative compound — an ensemble of buildings arranged around a private courtyard. Gehry contributed studios and additional structures that reflect the neighborhood’s industrial roots: corrugated metal siding, simple boxlike volumes and subtle geometric twists. The project, which blurs boundaries between living and making, captured both Hopper’s renegade spirit and Gehry’s evolving architectural language.

Schnabel House, Brentwood, 1989

Frank Gehry chats with then-owner Jon Platt inside the Schnabel House in 2010.

(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Completed for Rockwell and Marna Schnabel, the home represents a moment when Gehry translated his experimental vocabulary into a more refined domestic language, producing a residence that’s equally serene and expressive. It consists of shifting, interlocking pavilions organized around courtyards, gardens and a large rear reflecting pool. Gehry combines stucco, tile, metal and glass into a composition that feels sculptural and elegant, punctuated by the interiors’ dramatic heights and angled volumes, which open onto the landscape. Neighbors were at first suspicious, said Marna Schnabel, but soon they embraced the home. “It’s amazing how people react to something that’s not ‘normal,’” she said.