Frank Gehry, Visionary Architect Behind the 'Bilbao Effect', Dies at 96

Frank Gehry, the Canada‑born architect whose daring, sculptural buildings—from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to the Walt Disney Concert Hall—helped redefine contemporary architecture, has died at the age of 96. Gehry's representative, Meaghan Lloyd, said he died Friday morning at his Santa Monica home following a brief respiratory illness.

Early Life and Career

Born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto on February 28, 1929, Gehry moved with his family to the United States in the late 1940s and later adopted the surname Gehry to avoid anti‑Semitic targeting. He studied architecture at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1954, served in the US Army, and briefly enrolled in a city planning program at Harvard University that he did not complete. Early in his career he worked for shopping‑center pioneer Victor Gruen, spent time working in Paris in 1961, and returned to Los Angeles to establish his own practice in 1962.

Signature Works and Recognition

Gehry emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a leading figure in an experimental, deconstructionist strain of architecture. His 1978 reworking of his Santa Monica house—wrapped in corrugated metal around a 1920s structure—announced an aesthetic that would become his hallmark: irregular, crumpled‑paper–like metal facades and sweeping, unconventional forms. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honor, in 1989.

Gehry achieved global fame with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), a titanium‑skinned building whose sinuous forms helped revive a former industrial district and coined the phrase the "Bilbao effect" to describe architecture's power to stimulate urban renewal. Other major projects included the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Beekman Tower in New York, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. He also led major commissions such as an expansion of Facebook's Menlo Park campus, opened in 2018.

Design Approach and Legacy

Gehry embraced advanced design technologies—adapting 3D modelling tools used in aerospace—to realize complex curved and folded shapes while managing construction budgets. His work divided opinion: critics sometimes dismissed it as flamboyant or crude, while admirers praised its inventiveness and transformative civic impact. He remained a public figure who resisted the "starchitect" label, insisting he was simply a maker of buildings. "I love working. I love working things out," he told The Guardian in 2019.

“There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories, simple.” — Frank Gehry

Gehry lived for many years in Santa Monica and leaves behind a global portfolio of provocative, influential buildings that reshaped how architects and the public imagine the possibilities of form, materials and urban renewal.