Frank Gehry, who stretched architecture's boundaries, dies at 96

"Mr. Gehry was considered one of the most imaginative and expressive architects of his generation and ranked among the most important designers since Frank Lloyd Wright. His works became landmarks around the world, challenged the rigid formalism of modernist architecture,blurred the borders of architecture and sculpture, and impelled new methods of design and construction. The Guggenheim Museum and Walt Disney Concert Hall - audaciously curvilinear monuments to high culture clad in shimmering titanium and steel - became Mr. Gehry's ravishing signatures."

"Architect Philip Johnson, whose works epitomized modernist cool, once proclaimed Bilbao "the greatest building of our time." "Architecture is not about words. It's about tears," said Johnson, who broke down when he first beheld its soaring spaces. "I get the same feeling in Chartres Cathedral." The museum, which opened in 1997, draws upward of 1 million visitors a year and had such a transformative effect on its sleepy Basque town that cities the world over soon were lusting for the 'Bilbao effect.'"

Frank Gehry died Dec. 5 at his Santa Monica home at age 96 from a brief respiratory illness. He revolutionized late 20th-century architecture with expressive, curvilinear, sculpture-like buildings that challenged modernist formalism and opened new design and construction methods. Landmark projects such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles became signature works clad in titanium and steel and drew global attention. Bilbao transformed its Basque town and sparked the so-called 'Bilbao effect' that inspired cities to pursue iconic cultural architecture. Gehry’s work blurred the boundary between architecture and sculpture and earned widespread critical and public admiration.

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