A biography for Frank Gehryhasn’t been written yet.
“If I knew where I was going, I wouldn't do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don't do it.”
“There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories - simple.”
“I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.”
“I used to sketch - that's the way I thought out loud. Then they made a book of my sketches, and I got self-conscious, so now I don't do it much.”
“The best advice I've received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.”
“Some people may say my curved panels look like sails. Well, I am a sailor, so I guess I probably do use that metaphor in my work - though not consciously.”
“I have always thought that L.A. is a motor city that developed linear downtowns.”
“I never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building - I'm not.”
“There is stuff I would have liked to have done. But there are no sour grapes.”
“Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It's about making the world a better place, and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it.”
“Look, architecture has a lot of places to hide behind, a lot of excuses. 'The client made me do this.' 'The city made me do this.' 'Oh, the budget.' I don't believe that anymore.”
“I make a model of the site. There are some obvious things: where the entrance should be, where the cars have to go in. You start to get the scale of it. You understand the client's needs, and what the client is hoping for and yearning for.”
“I don't know how to overcome this perception that I'm extravagant.”
“I don't want to do architecture that's dry and dull.”
“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”
“A well-designed home has to be very comfortable. I can't stand the aesthetes, the minimal thing. I can't live that way. My home has to be filled with stuff - mostly paintings, sculpture, my fish lamps, cardboard furniture, lots of books.”
“For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn't do it.”
“It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone.”
“When I was a kid, my father didn't really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn't think I would amount to anything. My mother also.”
“I think people care. If not, why do so many people spend money going on vacations to see architecture? They go to the Parthenon, to Chartres, to the Sydney Opera House. They go to Bilbao... Something compels them, and yet we live surrounded by everything but great architecture.”