Conversations with Frank Gehry

by Barbara Isenberg, Frank Gehry

An unprecedented, intimate, and richly illustrated portrait of Frank Gehry, one of the world’s most influential architects. Drawing on the most candid, revealing, and entertaining conversations she has had with Gehry over the last twenty years, Barbara Isenberg provides new and fascinating insights into the man and his work.

Gehry’s subjects range from his childhood—when he first built cities with wooden blocks on the floor of his grandmother’s kitchen—to his relationships with clients and his definition of a “great” client. We learn about his architectural influences (including Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright) and what he has learned from Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rauschenberg.

We explore the thinking behind his designs for the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the redevelopment of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, the Gehry Collection at Tiffany’s, and ongoing projects in Toronto, Paris, Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere. And we follow as Gehry illuminates the creative process by which his ideas first take shape—for example, through early drawings for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, when the building’s trademark undulating curves were mere scribbles on a page. Sketches, models, and computer images provided by Gehry himself allow us to see how so many of his landmark buildings have come to fruition, step by step.

Conversations with Frank Gehry is essential reading for everyone interested in the art and craft of architecture, and for everyone fascinated by the most iconic buildings of our time, as well as the man and the mind behind them.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Art, Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2009

About the author

BARBARA ISENBERG,is an award winning journalist and author who has been writing about theater, art, music and arts personalities for over three decades. She is the author of the Los Angeles Times best-sellers Tradition! The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of "Fiddler on the Roof," The World's Most Beloved Musical, and "Conversations with Frank Gehry," as well as "Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical," and "State of the Arts: California Artists Talk About Their Work ." Her writing has appeared in the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Esquire, The Huffington Post, and London's Sunday Times. She received a Distinguished Artist Award from the Los Angeles Music Center and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. She lives in Los Angeles.

Her newest book, Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, The World's Most Beloved Musical, is now available in paperback as well as hardback. It was first published by St. Martin's Press to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic musical's Broadway debut, and is also available as an audio book from LA Theatre Works and online.

Reviews

[Hanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, Gehry has amazing mind

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a big Frank Gehry fan although I do believe he is a significant and immensely talented figure - so forgive my somewhat jaded view of this book. The book is a series of conversations assembled around specific themes (interesting) but mostly his massive projects (boring and anecdotal) undertaken by Gehry over the past forty years. He has had an interesting life and has a very creative and fluid way of working which is most engaging and which is well expressed in the text. A current critique of modern architecture describes architecture as having succumbed to commodification. A discipline which has such enormous potential to benefit civil society through effective and considered design of schools, health facilities, public space etc has recently directed its discursive focus virtually entirely towards office buildings and endowment funded art/culture monuments -museums, concert halls etc - for the pleasure and glorification of the monumentally wealthy and powerful, distancing the potential of architecture from most of us. A critique which demands that architecture should be more ethical in its enterprise and not simply serve the often expedient impulses which appear to currently drive it towards its fashionable and commodified status. Gehry is the flower girl of this tendency towards decadence and excess. His buildings titillate and amuse and occasionally fill one with awe (Bilbao) but their ultimate meaning and value is arguably vapid and simply reflective of an abundance of funding and patronage- lucky guy ! . A kind of baroque architecture. He is talented, hard working, passionate committed, honest and deserving of his reputation and the book is an interesting insight into the sensibility of an architect of great significance. I would prefer to hear him argue his position rather than simply bask in the arguably dubious delight of his effervescent and prolific work - an activity which this book accommodates most effectively. Not a great book but stimulating in a curiously vicarious way......

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir in the form of a series of interviews of architect, Frank Ghery by the author detailing his life, career, and specific projects. While I'm not really a fan of Ghery's aesthetic, I found it fascinating reading about what gave this man the confidence create, and how he convinced people to build all those curvy buildings.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a student of architecture but was so struck by Gehry's design of the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis that I wanted to learn more about him. I enjoyed his personal history, professional philosophy, and viewpoints on art and architecture.

[Dana Fernety · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a unique perspective on Gehry’s work by the artist himself. I’ve now read two books and watched two documentaries on Geary. This book gives insight into the inspiration for the work. I especially enjoy Gehry’s point of view regarding incidents described in other works.

[két con · Rating 3 out of 5]

i like his answers. not the questions.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isenberg builds this book from many interviews and Gehry's request for an oral history. Gehry is now 87, and it is a treasure to have so many of his thoughts and techniques written down. Born in Toronto, his family moved Los Angeles when Gehry was seventeen with only a $3000. Gehry drove trucks, went to LACity College (free), and night school at USC Extension. He served in the army, figuring out what he did best, tried going to Harvard Architecture school (left) and then slowly worked in other firms and began his own firm. This book made me realize, once again, the hard, complicated road of an architect. Gehry built a tight, well-functioning workplace and set of companies-- creating hundreds of totally unique and intricate buildings. This book describes how he created ideas for most of his largest projects and the process of reaching completion. There is also information on his jewelry and furniture design, his Pritzker Architecture Prize, his 17 honorary doctorates, and his beliefs that your children come first. A useful and thoughtful book.

[David M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the format of this book. It was the first that I've read that was based on an interview format, and it works quite wonderfully for peering into the mind of an architect. The book covers a surprising range of topics that helped shape Gehry and his varied career, including some personally raw and painful things. I found myself putting the book down not because I was bored with it, but that I was inspired and really wanted to go design something.

I recommend the book.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating. The Missus and I heard him speak a couple years ago, and my interest was piqued.
I received this book as a gift at Christmas, and was pleased with it. A fascinating man, and thorugh the conversations we get a look at the processes involved when Gehry develops a plan for a building.
Recommended for architecture fans.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can hear both Frank Gehry and Barbara Isenberg speak on the Live at the NYPL podcast http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep...

[Monte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous talent...if you have any interest in architecture read this

[Nancy Maclean Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely adored this book. At times, I wished Isenberg followed up with her questions (less P.R., more nitty gritty), but Gehry's ramblings and drawings made it all worthwhile.... Candy!