Frank Gehry, Starchitect Whose Museum Designs Defined an Era, Dies at 96

"Frank Gehry, an award-winning architect whose designs for museums proved widely influential, died on Friday in Santa Monica, California, at 96. According to the New York Times, which first reported the news, the cause was a brief respiratory illness. More so than perhaps any other architect of the past half-century, Gehry defined the field of museum architecture. His designs, often composed of sloping, incongruous forms, helped move art institutions in a new direction, showing that they need not only be set in Neoclassical pantheons"

"The most famous of his museum buildings was for the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Spanish museum opened in 1997 in a city that was economically depressed prior to the institution's arrival. The institution ended up rehabilitating the city, and its model ended up inspiring other museum directors to undertake similar projects, in what is now known as the "Bilbao effect." Gehry's design has been credited with contributing significnatly to the trend."

Frank Gehry died at 96 in Santa Monica from a brief respiratory illness. Gehry reshaped museum architecture with sloping, incongruous forms that offered alternatives to Neoclassical and hard-edged modernist buildings. The Guggenheim Bilbao, opened in 1997, catalyzed economic and cultural rehabilitation in a depressed Spanish city and inspired the so-called Bilbao effect. The Bilbao exterior used 33,000 titanium plates, was designed with CATIA software, and involved mountain climbers trained to install the paneling. The museum was hailed as a breakthrough, earning praise from leading architects and high rankings, though some observers and Gehry himself expressed reservations.

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