FRANK GEHRY at POMPIDOU

The "Frank Gehry" monographic exhibition presented at the Centre Pompidou retraces the stages marking a globally acclaimed body of architectural work. If the name of Frank Gehry embodies the very image of contemporary architecture, it is because his work has been questioning the identity and standards of the architectural form since the Sixties.

Frank O Gehry (Frank Owen Gehry, dit), Carré d'art, projet pour le concours pour la Médiathèque et le Centre d'art contemporain, Nîmes, 1984. Photograph © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI (diffusion RMN) © Frank O. Gehry.

The exhibition is intended to shed light on this career. It is divided into six sections, following the development of his work through some 60 projects, with a large number of original drawings and research models.

From the first period of his work (when the architect was close to artists on the Californian scene and working on a new grammar) to the development of a production platform that incorporated new digital tools, F. O. Gehry has pushed out the boundaries of architecture and emancipated it from all its conventions. A patient constructor, a creator receptive to all kinds of inventions and open to every challenge, he produces work that is both critical and practical, and has led to reflection about the heterogeneous nature of the city and the fluidity of the architectural organism.

After an initial presentation of Gehry's European projects at the Centre Pompidou in 1992, this exhibition now provides a comprehensive overview of a major body of work, for the first time in Europe.

ELEMENTARISATION SEGMENTATION 1965-1980 In 1962,

Frank Gehry opened his own office in Santa Monica. Drawing on his considerable knowledge of the construction world, he carried out numerous projects for property developers, industrialists and town planning agencies. At the same time, commissions for private houses and artists enabled him to experiment with the place of architecture in the Californian landscape. He began to build up an architectural language based on the object's relationship with its environment, the use of economical industrial materials (galvanised wire meshes, corrugated metal sheeting, stucco, cardboard and asphalt) and a new approach to traditional construction methods in wood. In formal terms, he segmented and decomposed the elementary geometry of the building. Each design, explicitly critical in respect to functionalism, thus explored the relationships between "closed/covered", "open space/closed space" and "visible/hidden", together with the continuity between wall and roof. From the minimalist volumes of Louis Danziger's studio (1964) to the illusionist geometries in the house designed for Ron Davis (1968-1972), Gehry increasingly explored an experimental field, including for the extension of his own house in Santa Monica (1977-1978), which condensed the critical scope of his work and led to his international recognition in the early Eighties.

COMPOSITION-ASSEMBLY 1980-1990

Beyond any aesthetic application, Gehry's closeness to the Californian art scene contributed to his profound questioning of architecture: a patient reinvention of the idea of the architectural object, and the assembly of complex projects. An appropriation of the "one-room building" concept put forward by architect and theorist Philip Johnson marked his style in the early Eighties. The designs he produced were based on the separation of the functional elements, and accentuated their heterogeneousness. The intuitions he explored with each new project involved opening architecture up to confrontational correspondences between various entities, bringing in new influences through its interactions with the city, and recomposing projects using autonomous units.

First challenging the identity of the architectural form, then redefining the assembly of projects' different parts, Gehry invented an architectural style based on interrelation, as symbolised by Claes Oldenburg's famous binoculars for the Chiat\Day advertising agency (1985-1991, Santa Monica).

FUSION-INTERACTION 1990-2000

Conscious of the limitations of an aesthetic of aggregation and assembly, Gehry sought to revive a principle of unity and continuity between the architectural object and its environment. In this respect, his designs for the Lewis Residence (1985-1995) and the Vitra Design Museum (1987- 1989) were major experiments, transfiguring the question of form to invent new principles of architectural style and create an organic unity. The use of wax-impregnated fabric for the Lewis Residence models, in order to capture the dynamic movement of drapery, again asserted the interaction between structure, material, envelope and ornament. At a time when Gehry was exploring the potential of new forms of computer-assisted modelling, the new building information instruments he developed enabled him to produce a genuine architecture of continuity, where walls and roofs became huge "sails" – an envelope produced using a single material – fusing together the split-up volumes of an initially fragmented project. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (1991-1997) is one of the most exemplary demonstrations of this.

TENSION-CONFLICT 1990-2000

Gehry's work on interstitial spaces combined visual effects of tension and attraction. The architect staged contradictions and abrupt changes in the urban fabric, and created the effect of rifts, clashes and even conflict between the different volumes of a building. Behind the growing complexity of his constructions, Gehry nonetheless sought to re-establish harmonies. For example, in Prague, he called the Nationale Nederlanden building (1992- 1996) "Fred and Ginger", indicating that the two bodies of the building were a single entity in movement, just like the dancers' bodies in relation to each other. His work on elasticity, compression and the actual conflict between the constructive elements (masonry, glazing, roofing, etc.), and the interaction of materials with each other were ultimately designed to play a connecting role in a complex urban fabric.

Frank Gehry has always been opposed to the inert, fixed identity of the sculptural object. His quest for an architectural space where the interstices between buildings intensify the city's energy, with its movement and flows, found one of its most powerful expressions in the Walt Disney Concert Hall (1989- 2003) in Los Angeles.

CONTINUITY-FLOW 2000-2010

Now that he had acquired mastery in producing complex interstitial spaces, Gehry began to reduce them, exploring new spatial forms engendered by continuous envelopes.

With the Jay Pritzker Pavilion (1999-2004) and the Richard B. Fisher Centre for the Performing Arts (1997-2003), he superimposed the roofing elements, which seemed to become independent; with the Marquès de Riscal Hotel (1999-2006), he multiplied them in a luxuriant combination of metallic ribbons; with the DZ Bank (1995-2001) and the Lou Ruvo clinic (2005-2010), he created dramatic continuity in the roofing surfaces. This geometrical play with the envelope of the building produced compositions whose infinite complexity pushed the very ideas of façade, roof and conventional points of reference in relation to the building's verticality to the point where they virtually disappeared.

Through the flexibility permitted by digital simulation, making it possible to fuse the constructive structure of the building with its envelope, the notion of ornament was then transferred to the skin itself. Thus the interpenetration of volumes and their fluidity produced an architecture free of all conventions: an organic, living architecture buoyed up by the complex flows of the city.

SINGULARITY-UNITY 2010-2015

With a patiently-forged architectural language at his fingertips, Gehry could now apply this critical strategy to his own work and once more question the identity of the architectural object. The Üstra Office Building (1995-2001), a parallelepiped with a slight twist, was the first to address this problem – one explored in greater depth by the IAC Building (2003- 2007) and 8 Spruce Street in New York (2003-2011). The morphologically complex façade of this tower resonates with the vibrations of Manhattan, achieving icon status. Here, as with the Louis Vuitton Foundation built in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris (2005-2014), the architecture enters into movement, constructing a kind of syncopation through the many different ways it can be looked at.

While the question that Gehry settles here is no longer the object's identity so much as its singularity, his projects – all urban – not only tell us what architecture could be; they also enlighten us as to the place where the constructed artefact is rooted: a geography, a space and a landscape; a social time and a materiality – in short, a territ

Curators.- Frédéric Migayrou, Aurélien Lemonier.
Deputy Curator.-Eliza Culea.
Architect/Scenography Designer.- Corinne Marchand.
Production Manager.- Maud Desseignes.

When.- From 8 October 2014 to 26 January 2015. Every day except Tuesdays from 11.00 a.m. to 21.00 p.m.
Venue.- Galerie Sud. Centre Pompidou. Paris. France.

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Model. American Center, Paris 1988 - 1993. Photograph © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI (diffusion RMN) © Frank O. Gehry.

Frank O Gehry (Frank Owen Gehry, dit), American Center, Paris, 1988 - 1993. Photograph © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI (diffusion RMN) © Frank O. Gehry.

Foundation Louis Vuitton by Frank Gehry. Photography © Fondation Louis Vuitton / Louis-Marie Dauzat.

Walt Disney Concert Hall. Frank O. Gehry. 2003. Photography © Jon Sullivan.

Centre Pompidou by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Centre Pompidou.

Poster on Facade. Image courtesy of Centre Pompidou.

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FRANK OWEN GEHRY

Frank Owen Gehry, was born in 1929 in Toronto (Canada), but adopted American nationality after moving to Los Angeles in 1947 with his parents. He graduated in Architecture in 1954 from the University of Baja California and began working in the studio of Victor Gruen. After completing his military service, he studied Urban Planning at Harvard and returned to Gruen’s office. He moved to Paris in 1961 with his wife and two daughters, where he worked for a year with André Rémondet. In 1962, he opened his own studio –Frank O. Gehry and Associates– in Los Angeles, from which he has worked on projects in America, Europe and Asia for five decades now.

He rose to prominence in the 70s for his buildings with sculptural forms that combine unusual industrial materials such as titanium and glass. During this same period, he began to develop a role as a designer of furniture with his Easy Edges collection, conceived as a low-cost range comprising fourteen pieces made out of cardboard, subsequently followed by the more artistic range, Experimental Edges. Since the late 80s, the name of Frank Gehry has been associated with the deconstructionist movement, characterized by fragmentation and the rupture of a linear design process, resulting in buildings with a striking visual appearance. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (1997) and the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague (1996), known as the Dancing House, may be considered among the most prominent examples of this formal language. Likewise noteworthy among his works are the Aerospace Museum of California (1984), the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany (1989), the Frederick Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis (1993), the DZ Bank building in Berlin (1998), the Gehry Tower in Hannover (2001), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stata Center in Cambridge (2003), the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) and the Maggie's Centre in Dundee, Scotland (2003). Gehry has also worked on a museum of contemporary art in Paris for the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the design of his first playground in New York, at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan known as The Battery, and the remodelling and recovery of Mayer Park in Lisbon, which included the restoration of the Capitolio Theatre. In Spain, 2006 saw the opening of the Herederos del Marqués de Riscal winery in Elciego (Álava), and he has also designed the Sagrera Tower in Barcelona.

His work has been the subject of numerous case studies and, in 2006, the film director Sydney Pollack released the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry, presented at Cannes. In that same year, he presented his project for the new Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi. In 2008, he designed the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Hyde Park, London. The first residential building in Asia designed by Gehry, the Opus Hong Kong tower, was opened in 2012. He is currently working on the design of the Eisenhower Memorial to be built in Washington; on the West Campus that Facebook is to build in Menlo Park, California and on the project of a residential tower in Berlin, which will become the tallest skyscraper in the city.

His designs have received over one hundred awards around the world. Noteworthy among the distinctions he has received are more than a dozen honorary degrees, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize (USA, 1977), the Pritzker Prize (1989), the Wolf Prize in Arts (Israel, 1992), the Praemium Imperiale (Japan, 1992), the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (1994), the Friedrich Kiesler Prize (Austria, 1998), and the Twenty Five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects (2012). He also holds the National Medal of Arts (USA, 1998), the Lotos Medal of Merit (USA, 1999), the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects (1999), and the Royal Gold Medal for the promotion of architecture (2000), awarded by the Queen of England. Gehry has been a member of the Pritzker Prize Jury and of institutions such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the US National Design Academy and the Royal Academy of Arts.

Frank Gehry. GEHRY Partners, LLP

Gehry Partners, LLP. The Gehry Partners team on the Battersea project is headed by Craig Webb and Brian Aamoth. Gehry Partners, LLP is a full service architectural firm with extensive international experience in the design and construction of academic, museum, theater, performance, commercial, and master planning projects.

Founded in 1962 and located in Los Angeles, California, Gehry Partners currently has a staff of approximately 125 people. Every project undertaken by Gehry Partners has Frank Gehry personally involved. Frank is supported by the broad resources of the firm and the extensive experience of the firm’s senior partners and staff. On Battersea, the design team will be led by Craig Webb who has collaborated with Frank for over 20 years. Current projects include: Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; LUMA Foundation in Arles, France; Divan Orchestra in Berlin; Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C.; King Street Development in Toronto, Ontario; Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia; Q-MOCA in Quanzhou, China; and West Campus for Facebook in Menlo Park, California. Projects under construction include the Puente de Vida Museum of Biodiversity in Panama; Foundation Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris, France and the Dr. Chau Chak Wing Building for the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

Raised in Toronto, Canada, Frank Gehry moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from USC in 1954, and studied city planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He founded Gehry Partners, LLP, in Los Angeles in 1962, a full-service architectural firm that developed extensive international experience in the design and construction of academic, museum, theater, performance and commercial projects.

Hallmarks of Mr. Gehry’s work include a concern that people dwell comfortably within the spaces that he creates, and an insistence that his buildings address the context and culture of their sites.

Despite his international stature and renown, he continues to be closely associated with Los Angeles, where his 1978 redesign of his Santa Monica home launched his international career.

“Frank holds a special place in his art for the work of contemporary artists. He was a central figure in the contemporary art world in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s, working closely with Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, John Altoon, Bob Irwin, Ed Moses, Ed Ruscha and Ken Price. And he continues to work closely with artists, including Claes Oldenburg and Jeff Koons, for whom he has collaborated on deeply sensitive installations of their work,” said Cuno. “Given his contributions to architecture, and the Getty’s extensive research and collections in Los Angeles art and architecture at the mid-century and beyond, and the commitment of the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute to the conservation and study of modern architecture, it is fitting that we present Frank with our highest honor.”