FRANK GEHRY (1929--)
Reacting, like many of his contemporaries, against the cold and often formulaic modernism that characterised many urban raeas, Frank Gehry began to experiment with unusual expressive devices and to search for a personal vocabulary. In his early work he built unique, quirky structures that emphasized human scale and contextual integrity.
The “renovations” he made to his own home (1978 and 1994) in Santa Monica, California show his experimentation in this direction. Gehry essentially stripped the two-story home down to its frame and then built a chain-link and corrugated-steel frame around it, complete with asymmetrical protrusions of steel rod and glass. He made the traditional bungalow—and the architectural norms it embodied—appear to have exploded wide open. The Edgemar Shopping Centre, also shown here, continued these themes.
Gehry continued those design experiments in two popular lines of corrugated cardboard furniture. Easy Edges (1969–73) and Experimental Edges (1979–82).
His ability to confound the viewer’s expectations of traditional materials and forms led him to be grouped with the deconstructivist movement in architecture, although his play upon architectural tradition also caused him to be linked to postmodernism.
© Alan John Ainsworth Photography
