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Frank Gehry, whose designs defied gravity and convention, dies at 96
“I love the relationship with the clients,” said architect Frank Gehry. In Bilbao, Spain, where he designed the groundbreaking building for the Guggenheim museum, “people come out and hug me,” he said.
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“I love the relationship with the clients,” said architect Frank Gehry. In Bilbao, Spain, where he designed the groundbreaking building for the Guggenheim museum, “people come out and hug me,” he said.
Dominieuq Faget/AFP/Getty Images
Swooping, swirling, gleaming, sculpted — Frank Gehry made buildings we’d never seen before. The architect behind the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles transformed contemporary architecture. He died Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., after a brief respiratory illness, according to his chief of staff. He was 96.
Gehry won all the top awards — including the Pritzker Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1999, when the American Institute of Architects gave him their Gold Medal, Gehry looked out at an audience that included contemporary gods of building — Philip Johnson, Robert Venturi, Michael Graves — and said, “it’s like finding out my big brothers love me after all.”
“He was probably the only truly great artist I’ve ever encountered who desperately cared what people thought of him and that people loved his work,” says Gehry’s biographer Paul Goldberger. The architect got his share of criticism — “accusations that he made crazy shapes and paid no attention to budget.”
But the praise was louder, because his striking buildings made people happy.
With 12 huge glass “sails,” the Louis Vuitton Foundation takes the form of a sailboat among the trees of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.
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With 12 huge glass “sails,” the Louis Vuitton Foundation takes the form of a sailboat among the trees of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.
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A woman walks inside the Louis Vuitton Foundation in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.
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A woman walks inside the Louis Vuitton Foundation in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.
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“I’ve always been for optimism and architecture not being sad,” Gehry told NPR in 2004. “You know, a building for music and performance should be joyful. It should be a great experience and it should be fun to go to.”
There was exuberance in his work. The swoops and swirls — made possible with aerospace technology — lifted the spirits of viewers used to post-war modernism — strict, boxy glass and steel buildings that looked imposing and unwelcoming.
Gehry says he found that style, cold, inhuman and lifeless. “I thought it was possible to find a way to express feeling and humanistic qualities in a building,” Gehry said. “But I wasn’t clear about it until I started experimenting, quite accidentally, with fish forms.”
He loved the shape of fish, and the way they moved. He drew them all his life, an inspiration that began in his grandmother’s bathtub in Toronto.
Gehry stands next his fish lamps at his exhibition at the Gagosian Mayfair gallery, in central London, in November 2013. As a child, Gehry remembers watching carp — destined to be dinner — swimming in his grandmother’s bathtub.
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Gehry stands next his fish lamps at his exhibition at the Gagosian Mayfair gallery, in central London, in November 2013. As a child, Gehry remembers watching carp — destined to be dinner — swimming in his grandmother’s bathtub.
Joel Ryan/Invision/AP
“Every Thursday when I stayed at her house, I’d go with her to the market,” he recalled. “And there would be a big bag of some kind filled with water that we would carry home with a big carp in it. We’d put it in the bathtub. I’d sit and watch it and the next day it was gone.”
Those carp were turned into gefilte fish — a classic Jewish dish — but stayed in Gehry’s memory long past suppertime. He translated their curves and motions into architecture. In Prague, Czechs call his elegant design for an office building “Fred and Ginger” — two cylindrical towers, one solid, the other glass, pinched in at the waist, like dancers. His Disney Hall and his Guggenheim museum swell like symphonies.
Gehry’s whimsical towers in Prague have earned the nickname “Fred and Ginger.”
Tony Hisgett via Flickr Creative Commons
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Tony Hisgett via Flickr Creative Commons
Gehry’s whimsical towers in Prague have earned the nickname “Fred and Ginger.”
Tony Hisgett via Flickr Creative Commons
“He really wanted you to feel a sense of movement,” Goldberger says. “A building is a static thing, but if it feels like it’s moving, for him that was more exciting.”
The Guggenheim — a billowing swirl of titanium in gold and sunset colors — excited viewers. After it opened in 1997, Gehry said everyone who came to him wanted a Guggeinheim. But Gehry wasn’t interested.
“Like all great artists, he wanted to keep pushing himself and move forward,” Goldberger says. “He did not want to copy himself. He did not want to do that building again.”
The Guggeinheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and The Disney Hall in Los Angeles (it opened in 2003, a swoosh of silver stainless steel, 1/16th of an inch thick) are Gehry’s signature buildings. But they’re a far cry from his early work. His own 1978 residence in Santa Monica sports common materials. If clients couldn’t afford fancy — marble, say — he’d use cheap.
Gehry constructed the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles out of stainless steel. “We’re living in a culture, in a time where movement is pervasive,” he said. “Everything is moving. And so if we hook onto that and use it as part of our language, our architectural language, there’s some resonance for it.”
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Gehry constructed the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles out of stainless steel. “We’re living in a culture, in a time where movement is pervasive,” he said. “Everything is moving. And so if we hook onto that and use it as part of our language, our architectural language, there’s some resonance for it.”
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Inside the Disney Concert Hall.
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Inside the Disney Concert Hall.
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“He started using plywood and chain link fence and corrugated metal,” Goldberger says.
Those buildings got attention. But the later ones made him a star — and a term was coined: Starchitect. Goldberger says Gehry hated it.
“He didn’t really hate fame,” Goldberger explains. “But he was too smart to sacrifice everything for it.”
Gehry kept faithful to his vision. He turned down jobs that didn’t feel right and imagined others that got built, were widely admired, but sometimes didn’t live up to his imagination.
“You know, what’s in my mind’s eye is always 10 times better than what I ever achieve because the dream image can leak …” Gehry said with a laugh. “But in terms of its public acceptance it’s beyond anything I ever expected. I’ve never been accepted before like this.”
Gehry received a National Medal of Arts from Bill Clinton and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. The New Yorker called Bilbao “a masterpiece of the 20th century.” Architect Philip Johnson said it was “the building of the century.” And the public (with some exceptions, of course) adored the work.
“He made great architecture accessible to people,” Goldberger says, and that re-shaped their sense of what buildings could be.
He describes Gehry’s work as “one of those extraordinary moments where the most advanced art intersects with popular taste. That only happens very rarely in the culture, in any field.”
It’s been said that architecture is the message a civilization sends to the future. With walls that are shaped and sculpted, and buildings that look joyous and free, Frank Gehry’s is a message of humanism and hope.
The author of this obituary, Susan Stamberg, died in October 2025. The story was updated and reviewed before publication.
Shannon Rhoades edited the audio of this story. Beth Novey adapted it for the Web.
Jessie Buckley has been nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her portrayal of William Shakespeare’s wife in Hamnet.
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Kate Green/Getty Images
Actor Jessie Buckley says she’s always been drawn to the “shadowy bits” of her characters — aspects that are disobedient, or “too much.” Perhaps that’s what led her to play Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, in Hamnet.
Buckley says the film, which is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, offered a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife: that she “had kept him back from his genius,” Buckley says.
But, she adds, “What Maggie O’Farrell so brilliantly did, not just with Agnes and Shakespeare’s wife, but also with Hamnet, their son, was to bring these people … and give them status beside this great man. … [And] give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.”
The film is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best actress for Buckley. In it, she plays a woman deeply connected to nature, who faces conflicts in her marriage, as well as the death of their son Hamnet.
Buckley found out she was pregnant a week after the film wrapped. She’s since given birth to her first child, a daughter.
“The thing that this story offered me, that brought me into this next chapter of my life as a mother was tenderness,” she says. “A mother’s tenderness is ferocious. To love, to birth is no joke. To be born is no joke. And the minute something’s born into the world, you’re always in the precipice of life and death. That’s our path. … I wanted to be a mother so much that that overrode the thought of being afraid of it.”
Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn plays her brother Bartholomew in Hamnet.
Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
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Courtesy of Focus Features/Courtesy of Focus Features
Interview highlights
On filming the scene where she howls in grief when her son dies
I didn’t know that that was going to happen or come out, it wasn’t in the script. I think really [director] Chloé [Zhao] asked all of us to dare to be as present as possible. Of course, leading up to it, you’re aware this scene is coming, but that scene doesn’t stand on its own. By the time I’d met that scene, I had developed such a deep bond with Jacobi Jupe, who plays Hamnet, and [co-stars] Paul [Mescal] and Emily Watson, and all the children and we really were a family. And Jacobi Jupe who plays Hamnet is such an incredible little actor and an incredible soul, and we really were a team. …
The death of a child is unfathomable. I don’t know where it begins and ends. Out of utter respect, I tried to touch an imaginary truth of it in our story as best I could, but there’s no way to define that kind of grief. I’m sure it’s different for so many people. And in that moment, all I had was my imagination but also this relationship that was right in front of me with this little boy and that’s what came out of that.
On what inspired her to pursue singing growing up
I grew up around a lot of music. My mom is a harpist and a singer and my dad has always been passionate about music, so it was always something in our house and always something that was encouraged. … Early on, I have very strong memories of seeing and hearing my mom sing in church and this quite intense mercurial conversation that would happen between her, the story and the people that would listen to her. And at the end of it, something had been cracked between them and these strangers would come up with tears in their eyes. And I guess I saw the power of storytelling through my mom’s singing at a very young age, and that was definitely something that made me think I want to do that.
On her first big break performing as a teen on the BBC singing competition I’d Do Anything — and being criticized by judges about her physical appearance
I was raw. I hadn’t trained. I had a lot to learn and to grow in. I was only 17. I think there was part of their criticism which I think was destructive and unfair when it became about my awkwardness, or they would say I was masculine and send me to kind of a femininity school. … They sent me to [the musical production of] Chicago to put heels on and a leotard and learn how to walk in high heels, which was pretty humiliating, to be honest, and I’m sad about that because I think I was discovering myself as a young woman in the world and wasn’t fully formed. … I was different. I was wild, I had a lot of feeling inside me. I could hardly keep my hands beside myself and I think to kind of criticize a body of a young woman at that time and to make her feel conscious of that was lazy and, I think, boring.
On filming parts of the 2026 film The Bride! while pregnant
I really loved working when I was pregnant. I thought it was a pretty wild experience, especially because I was playing Mary Shelley and I was talking about [this] monstrosity, and here I was with two heartbeats inside me. Becoming a mom and being pregnant did something, I think, for me. My experience of it, it’s so real that it really focuses [me to be] allergic to fake or to disconnection.
Since my daughter has come and I know what that connection is and the real feeling of being in a relationship with somebody … as an actress, it’s very exciting to recognize that in yourself and really take ownership of yourself.
I’m excited to go back and work on this other side of becoming a mother in so many ways, because I’ve shed 10 layers of skin by loving more and experiencing life in such a new way with my daughter. I’m also scared to work again because it’s hard to be a mother and to work. That’s like a constant tug because I love what I do and I’m passionate and I want to continue to grow and learn and fill those spaces that are yet to be filled — and also be a mother. And I think every mother can recognize that tug.
On the possibility of bringing her daughter to travel with her as she works
I haven’t filmed for nearly a year and I cannot wait. I’m hungry to create again. And my daughter will come with me. She’s seven months, so at the moment she can travel with us and it’s a beautiful life. And she meets all these amazing people and I have a feeling that she loves life and that’s a great thing to see in a child. And I hope that’s something that I’ve imparted to her in the short time that she’s been on this earth is that life is beautiful and great and complex and alive and there’s no part of you that needs to be less in your life. You might have to work it out, but it’s worth it.
Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Bruce Campbell
I’m Battling Cancer
Published
Bruce Campbell has revealed he has cancer, but says it’s a type that’s treatable, though not curable.
“The Evil Dead” actor shared the news Monday in a message to fans, writing, “Hi folks, these days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that — I’m having one of those.” He continued, “It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’ I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too.”
Campbell said he wouldn’t go into further detail about his diagnosis, but explained his work schedule will be changing. “Appearances and cons and work in general need to take back seat to treatment,” he wrote, adding he plans to focus on getting “as well as I possibly can over the summer.”
As a result, Campbell says he has to cancel several convention appearances this summer, noting, “Treatment needs and professional obligations don’t always go hand-in-hand.”
He says his plan is to tour this fall in support of his new film, “Ernie & Emma,” which he stars in and directs.
Ending on a determined note, Campbell told fans, “I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch … and I expect to be around a while.”
Neve Campbell in Scream 7.
Paramount Pictures
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Paramount Pictures
The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.
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