Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry

by Paul Goldberger

Overview

Here, from Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Paul Goldberger, is the first full-fledged critical biography of Frank Gehry, undoubtedly the most famous architect of our time. Goldberger follows Gehry from his humble origins—the son of working-class Jewish immigrants in Toronto—to the heights of his extraordinary career. He explores Gehry’s relationship to Los Angeles, a city that welcomed outsider artists and profoundly shaped him in his formative years. He surveys the full range of his work, from the Bilbao Guggenheim to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. to the architect’s own home in Santa Monica, which galvanized his neighbors and astonished the world. He analyzes his carefully crafted persona, in which an amiable surface masks a driving ambition. And he discusses his use of technology, not just to change the way a building looks, but to revolutionize the very practice of the field. Comprehensive and incisive, Building Art is a sweeping view of a singular artist—and an essential story of architecture’s modern era.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307946393
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	506,223
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Paul Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, spent fifteen years as the architecture critic for The New Yorker and began his career at The New York Times, where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism for his writing on architecture. He is the author of many books, most recently Why Architecture Matters, Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, and Up From Zero. He teaches at The New School and lectures widely around the country on architecture, design, historic preservation, and cities. He and his wife, Susan Solomon, live in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating. . . . An informative, startling journey into the inner sanctums of modern architecture’s power structure.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Revealing. . . . A penetrating portrait.” —Morning Edition/NPR

“Riveting. . . . Full of little-known facts about the Pritzker Prize-winner that will surprise the most knowledgable Gehry-philes.” —Architectural Digest

“Excellent and comprehensive. . . . Undeniably fascinating.” —Bloomberg

“Terrifically readable. . . . Satisfying detail on Gehry’s career path and hugely complex personality.” —Los Angeles Times

“Convey[s] the architect’s personality and process with deft strokes that have an artistic ease of their own. . . . If you’re intrigued by Frank Gehry . . . I can’t recommend this expansive survey of his life and work too highly.” —John King, San Francisco Chronicle

“Fascinating. . . . Agilely balances the disparate subjects of art and biography. Goldberger’s critical assessments of Gehry’s designs are insightful and often riveting.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Critically fluent, socially and psychologically acute. . . . An involving work of significant architectural history and a discerning and affecting portrait of a daring and original master builder.” —Booklist (starred review)

“This full-length critical study of an important contemporary architect is by one of our finest architectural critics. . . . [An] outstanding volume. . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“Richly researched, intelligent, and graceful.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[Goldberger] contextualizes Gehry’s work with smart discussions of trends in Modernism and the Los Angeles art scene that inspired such trends, and offers his usual shrewd, evocative insights into the look and feel of buildings.” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Like Steven Millhauser's superb Martin Dressler, Goldberger's big, colorful biography is a tale of moxie and success in the New World…As an inside view of the networking and power and personality issues that often determine who builds what in the world today, this book is fascinating. Goldberger, clearly mindful of the deep humanitarianism and aesthetic flair and judgment that mark architecture of a higher order, has done a great service.

The New York Times Book Review - Nicholas Fox Weber

07/13/2015
Pulitzer-winning architecture critic Goldberger (Why Architecture Matters) finds no conflict between avant-garde aesthetics and practical buildings in this appreciative biography of celebrated architect Frank Gehry. Gehry’s low-key personality makes him a dull presence compared to his flamboyant designs. His early infatuation with grungy plywood and chain-link fencing as decorative elements led to the mature style of his acclaimed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, a flagrantly non-Euclidean assemblage of warped, crumpled, billowing shapes sheathed in metal. The book’s drama comes from the struggle to superimpose these buildings over the misgivings of clients, civil engineers, and nonplussed neighbors. Goldberger defends Gehry against charges of being a capricious artiste foisting abstract sculpture on a baffled world; he paints the architect as a down-to-earth sort who designs eminently functional buildings that respond to their surroundings, exhibit continuity with the past, and embrace Earthlings despite looking like crashed spaceships. He contextualizes Gehry’s work with smart discussions of trends in Modernism and the Los Angeles art scene that inspired such trends, and offers his usual shrewd, evocative insights into the look and feel of buildings. Still, his apologia may not shake the reader’s impression that Gehry’s designs are more self-conscious than organic—studied attempts to blow people’s minds with weird-looking structures. Photos. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/01/2015
This full-length critical study of an important contemporary architect is by one of our finest architectural critics. Following major retrospectives of Frank Gehry's work at Paris's Pompidou Center, this book's publication also coincides with the major exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From his childhood in Toronto, Frank Owen Goldberg (b. 1929) would emerge in Los Angeles, ultimately becoming the world's most innovative modern architect. Winning the prestigious Pritzker Prize secured his place on the world stage; the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the Disney Concert Hall assured Gehry's dominance. Pulitzer Prize winner and former New Yorker architecture critic Goldberger's outstanding volume, the first comprehensive biography of its subject, details Gehry's personal life, his education, his marriages—in essence, his life's journey, and how each major building becomes an integral part of this remarkable artist's evolution. This title was written with the subject's full cooperation and access to Gehry's archives. VERDICT An essential addition to all general library collections, not only those specializing in architecture. Highly recommended for those interested in architecture but also for general readers who want to learn more about an influential contemporary cultural figure and the complexities of major architectural projects. [See Prepub Alert, 3/23/15.]—Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton

Library Journal

2015-06-30
An admiring life of the celebrated architect who designed, among other notable structures, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Vanity Fair contributing editor Goldberger, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize (Distinguished Criticism, 1984), has published other works on architecture (Building Up and Tearing Down, 2009, etc.) and has known Gehry for decades. His affection and admiration are patent throughout the book. Although he acknowledges some of Gehry's personal weaknesses—e.g., he does not like firing people and passes on such tasks to subordinates—the closest he comes to something full-on negative is when he comments that when Gehry's recent design for an Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., received some noisy opposition, it was just "one of those moments when Babe Ruth strikes out." In many ways, Goldberger presents a traditional biography. He begins with a key event (the opening of a New York City apartment tower in 2011; he returns to it some 350 pages later) and then chronicles some family history before following Gehry, born in Canada in 1929 as Frank Owen Goldberg, a name he would change in 1954. The author takes us through Gehry's schooling, his decision to try architecture, his early struggles, and his eventual ascension to what has been a career to rival that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Goldberger highlights Gehry's pioneering use of design software, credits his most valuable associates (some of whom he later fired), and comments periodically about his relationships with his children (from two marriages), whom he didn't see much, although one son joined the firm and has risen to prominence there. The author ends with the heartaches that all long-living human beings must endure—deaths of loved ones and the decline of health, mental acuity, and creative power. Richly researched, intelligent, and graceful, but some readers may wonder if Gehry has a dark side.

Kirkus Reviews