Contemporary

Architecture
Ideas and works of Frank
Gehry
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Biography Canadian-American contemporary architect
 Born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada, 1929
 Studied at the University of Southern California and Harvard
University
 Career started when he remodeled their Santa Monica home
 Has worked as a professor at various universities and has many
ongoing projects Had an interest in unusual building materials
 since he was young (building homes/cities with found objects in
grandfather’s hardware store)
 more interested in architecture than furniture design Built many
well-known buildings (e.g. Walt Disney Concert Hall) and made
a name for himself because of his unique works
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Common Characteristics
 Bold postmodern shapes Unusual
materials (e.g. corrugated metal)
 Deconstructivism Uses materials make
his work look crude or unfinished
 Architectural style – Deconstructivism:
Freedom in creating complex buildings
that challenge the strict focus on forms
and functionality of architecture
Architectural style: 4

 Gehry's work falls within the style of Deconstructivism (departing from modernism).

 Deconstructivist structures are not required to reflect specific social or universal ideas, i.e.

 universality of form, do not reflect a belief that form follows function.

 Gehry sometimes remains controversial due to the lack of a unifying philosophy or theory.

 Gehry’s style at times seems unfinished or even crude

 Frank Gehry began to redirect his architecture by fusing the Japanese and vernacular elements in his early
work with the influence of painters and sculptors in a sophisticated manipulation of prospectively distorted
shapes, sculptural masses molded by light, and buildings that reveal their structures

 Gehry explored a fascination with the process of construction and the use of mass produced and affordable
materials.

 He came to international prominence with works which exploded the geometry of traditional architecture to
create a dramatic new form of expression.

 He deployed cutting-edge computer technology to realize shapes and forms of hitherto unimaginable
complexity, such as the startling irregularities of his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao,

 Gehry is very much inspired by fish . Not only do they appear in his buildings, he created a line of jewelry,
household items, and sculptures based on this motif
Guggenheim
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Museum,
Bilbao
• Location:BILBAO, SPAIN
• Date:1997
• Construction System:STEEL FRAME,
TITANIUM SHEATHING
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 6

 Architects: Gehry Partners

 Location : Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,
 Abandoibarra Hiribidea, 2, 48009 Bilbo, Bizkaia,
Spain
 Category : Museum
 Project Year : 1997

 The New Guggenheim Museum found in Bilbao Spain and designed by

Architect Frank Gehry shows a uniquely modernistic approach to an
artistic landmark.
 Taking for years for overall construction, Gehry combines the outdoors
with the in, through large glass doors and titanium “fish like scales”
elements.

 The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao building represents a magnificent example of the most
ground-breaking 20th- century architecture.
 With site area of 32,500 m2 , of which 11,000 m2 area dedicated to exhibition space,
 the Museum represents an architectural landmark of audacious configuration and
innovating design, providing a seductive backdrop for the art exhibited in it.
Location 7

Krens was jogging along Princes of Spain Bridge when he noticed an abandoned industrial land along the Nervión River, and
immediately suggested this location to the Authority of Bilbao. Located on a bend of the river and in a lower level than the rest
of the city, it was an elongated area extending slightly below the De la Salve Bridge.
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Urban concept 10

• Since its inception, Gehry tried to involve the project

within a larger urban scheme, revitalizing the
waterfront, exploring the places from where better
views could be enjoyed and those where the museum
should have a more modest scale.

• Another important urban component is the circulation along the

riverfront. Using a pond in front of the museum, the architect reflects
the adjacent waterfront, and using the circulation in a theatrical and
dynamic way (it reminds me of the promenade cinematique in
Tschumi's Parc de la Villette), gives the impression that the river
reaches the edge of the building. What is missing is a public space in
the waterfront itself.
• The museum's sculptural forms came from various references. Towards
the city, covered with limestone brought from Andalusia, the most
stable volumes dialogue with the urban surroundings.
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 Planning 12

 The plan was to build a museum comprised of mostly curved surfaces. Some said it cannot be built.
 The design was specified by a 3D computer model, with some 56,000 reference points.
 The model was used by numerically controlled machines for the production of building components.
 It was also used to calculate the structural loadings and stresses on the building.
 The use of the 3D computer model was a critical factor in the construction of such a monumental building
sculpture.
 The building is one of the most admired architecturein last decade of the 20C.
 It was inaugurated in 1997.
Self-affinity: from urban to the building scale 13

 Depending on the level on which sections are made

to obtain the floor plans, the forms of the Museum
assume different curvatures.
 However, in the analysis of the building's site plan,
it is possible to identify a counter-clockwise
recursive procedure of variation in scale of the
different forms, the position of the atrium being
the central axis.

Sickle leaf patterns. a) the patterns identified;

b) site plan with the sickle leaf patterns; c)
overlap of the patterns.
The form and its external constraints 14

 The regulatory strokes and axes with the starting point on the Salbeko Zubia bridge’s path.
 We observe that there is a convergence of such strokes where the atrium is, reflecting its
importance in organizing the internal spaces, connecting the axes of the prismatic volumes: the
one with greatest extension (which also converges with the axis from the bridge), the one with the
smallest extension (to the left) and the one from exhibition room 104, already mentioned before
for extending beneath the bridge and connecting to the tower.
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Form and its composition logic: between
proportion and symmetry

we found correspondence with certain proportions:

 (b) shows the square root of 2 rectangles on the bounding rectangles of the
prismatic volume of the elevation, the grouped windows and each individual
window;
 (c) and (d) show the golden ratio on the prismatic volumes of the “traditional”
exhibition rooms, square proportion on secondary volumes and in the “traditional”
exhibition rooms, and square root of 2 proportion on the bounding boxes of the
curved surfaces.
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Elevations

 The building’s walls and ceilings are load-bearing, containing an internal structure
of metal rods that form grids with triangles.
 CATIA calculated the number of bars required in each location, as well as the
bars’ positions and orientations.
 In addition to this structure, the walls and ceilings have several insulating layers
and an outer coating of titanium.
 Each piece is exclusive to its location, determined by the CATIA software.
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The structure defies time by the way elements are focused on the ununiformed landscape. The design so
futuristic yet designed 13 years ago. Frank Ghery’s Guggenheim portrays that of a uniquely justified and
creative genius who has created a beautiful and seamless piece of architecture taking in all its
surroundings and becoming that of the landscape.
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Sections

The interior is dominated by the central atrium, 50 feet high, one of the
most impressive and monumental spaces I've seen, displaying the
dramatic and convoluted volumes and circulation galleries that connect
them.
In addition, both the atrium and the galleries the space visually integrate
to the external landscape, incorporating the cityscape as part of the
building component.
The largest room (130 m long), an elongated nave that evokes the shape
of a fish, is intended for monumental sculptures. In fact, the works of
Richard Serra housed there were made especially for the gallery, and
assembled during the the process of construction of it (as was done in
the Salon De Maria in the Chichu Art Museum by Tadao Ando, for
instance). The rusty-metal color undulating forms swing echoing the
space that contain them, to establishing a dialogue with the building. In
contrast, the labyrinth is a group of sculptures based on triangular
geometry.
Interiors 19

In addition, both the atrium and the galleries the space visually integrate
to the external landscape, incorporating the cityscape as part of the
building component.

The elevators are covered by these glass plates

resembling flakes, another reference to the aquatic
world that were formerly used in "The Dancing
House", designed by Gehry and Milunic on the
banks of the Vltava River in Prague.
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Interior corridor’s

Aerial view of the Guggenheim museum The large, light-filled atrium

View from Campo Volantin Foot Bridge View of water body with the structure
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Frank Gehry house

 Architects: Frank gehry
 Location : santa monica, california
 Category : residence
 Project Year : 1978
 Construction : lightwood frame work,
Corrugated metal

• Santa Monica residence is a commonly cited

example of Deconstructivist architecture, as it
was so drastically divorced from its original
context, and in such a manner as to subvert its
original spatial intention.
• The Santa monica home is not a new house built by
the Architect, but an modification of an existing
building, the shape extending , adding new materials
and completely changing the appaearance.
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• The original structure is conventional 2 storey
Bunglow with framing.

Ground floor
Entry first floor

•Gehry covered outside the house with a new and unusal skin, used a
wrapping process, montage of fences around construction.
• Low aqua concrete walls were used to mark the boundary.
Corrugated metal
sheets

Low aqua concrete

Walls`
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• Gehry used corrugated layers of metal boxes
to create a larger sense of space and movement implied
in the kitchen and dinning.
• Wooden planks were built in the back yard.

• A new roof is added for the additional space

created.
• Chain link fencing was used to ecnclose the floor
added.
• Glass cubes placed over the kitchen and
dinning for the sunlight.
• Two wired glass cubes form a link
between the old house and new layer.
• The cube light flooded the kitchen space
while maintaning privacy.
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Exterior layer of plywood

Interior view of kitchen

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Materials
•

• Gehry makes use of unconventional materials such as

fences with trellis, glass inner wire and corrugated metal
sheets , wood framing, corrugated steel, plywood and
lightwood frames.
• The sculpted shape and semi-industrial raw materials
support the dynamic movement and irregular shapes
and fluid.
• The kitchen floor is covered with asphalt, suggesting a path to the
outside of the original bungalow.
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Aerospace museum
The Aerospace Museum at Exhibition Park, California, is one of Frank Gehry's
early works, and one of his first museum commissions. The Aerospace Museum
is part of the larger California Science center which includes several other
structures by other architects. Even at this early stage, Gehry's work
incorporated the distinctive style he adapted from previous residential projects,
creating geometric shifts and irregular angular forms which break from the
spacial bounding of the base structure.
• The structure is segmented, comprising of a union of differentiated pieces 31
brought together in a spacial collage of artistic style and architectural
form.
• The Museum's exterior has the signature sculptural style that permeates
Gehry's work, with the facade of the building an arrangement of intricate
stylistic components: a large metal-skinned polygon, a glass wall with a
windowed prism above it, and a stucco cube with a hangar door.
•. The purpose of the structure is reinforced through these materials, with
the building itself as an abstraction of aircraft and their environment.
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