Times<\/a>, calling it a \u201csweet little house that everyone in the neighborhood liked.\u201d<\/p>\nWith just $50,000 ($264,500 today) \u2014 and a willingness to upset his suburban neighbors \u2014 Gehry turned the home an icon of deconstructivist architecture.<\/p>\n
Paul Goldberger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic and author of \u201cBuilding Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry,\u201d told The Post that the 1977 home actually brought Gehry to international attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was his laboratory for working out so many of his ideas \u2014 his interest in raw industrial materials like plywood, corrugated metal, and chain-link fencing, and his desire to use them to create a complex and pleasing emotional experience, the sort of thing you don\u2019t associate normally with that stuff,\u201d Goldberger said in an email.<\/p>\n
Gehry with one of his sons, Alejandro, in the front yard of his Santa Monica home in 1980. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Gehry experimented everyday materials like metal, plywood, chain-link fence and wood framing. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The years-long project attracted global admirers \u2014 and neighbor complaints. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Over the years, Gehry built a shell-like facade built around the original, unassuming home. The structure became increasingly complex, made up of materials that sparked Gehry\u2019s interest, like chain-link fence and wood framing.\u00a0Tilted glass cubes flooded the strange, indoor-outdoor environs with light.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted his design to surround and envelop the old house that he had bought, but not completely obliterate it, so that the new and old could be in dialogue with each other,\u201d Goldberger said.<\/p>\n
The final, striking effect was described by the Los Angeles Conservancy as \u201ca sense of being perpetually under construction.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gehry Residence was not everyone\u2019s cup of tea, however. Gehry told the Times in 2021 that some of his neighbors were \u201creally pissed off,\u201d and one even attempted to sue him. <\/p>\n
But no one can deny Gehry\u2019s ambition.<\/p>\n
Gehry built a new residence in Santa Monica at age 90, with the help of his son. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The home on Adelaide Drive reflected the architect\u2019s matured, but still artful style. Google<\/p>\n
Douglas fir and high-end finishes took the place of plywood and chain-link fences. Ca.gov<\/p>\n
Gehry\u2019s nonconformist flair matured as his global star rose. His second Los Angeles home proved a testament to his decades of evolving experimentation. <\/p>\n
At age 90, Gehry, with the help of his son and fellow architect, Samuel Gehry, built a new dream home on an idyllic plot overlooking Santa Monica Canyon and the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The father-son-duo made use of the same unexpected angles, glass panes and sculptural qualities that so defined Gehry\u2019s artistic style. Unlike 1977, Gehry enjoyed a much higher budget this time around \u2014 Douglas fir took the place of plywood. <\/p>\n
For Gehry, the deeply personal project yielded a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime\u201d house, he told Architectural Digest<\/a> in 2019. <\/p>\nBoth properties are still held by the Gehry family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The late architect Frank Gehry was known for his ambitious, dynamic public buildings \u2014 but his little-known personal…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":438847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2513,648,1032,1033,171,224,4329,10204,9503,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-438846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-architecture","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-real-estate","15":"tag-residential-real-estate","16":"tag-santa-monica","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115697925671478587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}