American Masters (1985–…): Season 20, Episode 7 - Sketches of Frank Gehry - full transcript

Is starting hard?

You know it is.

I don?t know what you
do when you start, but I

clean my desk, I make a lot of

stupid appointments

that I make sound important.

Avoidance, delay, denial.

I?m always scared that I?m
not going to know what to do.

It?s a terrifying moment

And then when I start,
I?m always amazed.

So, that wasn?t so bad.



#SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY#

If you?re a complete layman and
not an architectural specialist,

what?s so hot about Frank Gehry?

What?s all the fuss about?

#CHUCK ARNOLDI - ARTIST#
He?s changed the look of a very,

conservative field.

He mixes the freewheeling-ness of art

with something that is really concrete
#ED RUSCHA - ARTIST#

and un-forgiving which
is the laws of physics.

And you put up a building,

and man, that thing has got to stand.

And I believe that all of his
buildings have been standing.

He?s an architect who is also an artist.

He takes risks, and that?s what artists do
#MILDRER FRIEDMAN - WRITER CURATOR#



artists take risks, to do something
new that no one has seen before.

I look on him as a
?hyphenate?

as a writer ? director.
#MICHAEL OVITZ- ENTREPRENEUR, ART COLLECTOR#

Someone who sits down,
conceives of something,

thinks it up, which is the
blank peace of paper in front of him.

Then has the ability to
execute it into a visual image.

He?s the leading architect
in the world today.

#PHILIP JOHNSON - ARCHITECT#
It?s very easy to say.

If you say ?Wow? when you?re in a place,
there must be something happening.

The challenge is to get it
in two dimensions on film.

Oh! Hopeless!

You better give it up
and become an architect.

You see how this unfolds and is
welcoming, and is carrying you in?

That facade is not frontal.
That curve leads right into it.

Well, let me just shoot that curve.

Frank?s got his own original, and,

sort of perverse way of doing things.

We?ve been friends for several years.

And we?ve spent a lot of time
together bemoaning the difficulties

of trying to find personal
expressiveness within

disciplines that make
stringent commercial demands.

Several people approached him with the
idea of making a documentary about him.

When he asked me if I?d do
it, I thought he was crazy.

It?s not just that I didn?t know
anything about making documentaries,

I didn?t even know
anything about architecture.

That?s why you?re perfect, he said.

#CRAIG WEBB - DESING PARTNER#

Pretty funny.

It?s weird.

Well, let?s look at it for a
while, be irritated by it,

and we?ll figure out what to do.

What don?t you like?

I don?t know yet.

It seems a little pompous,
a little pretentious.

This is the part I don?t
know how to put in words

Ah, but that?s the most
important part!

If one of these guys came
down, and this guy came down,

and this one became part of that,
then I would start to like it.

Now this guy starts to.

That's not a good one.

This side, I still don?t like
this side, Craig, I still don't like it.

I know why I don?t like it, you know.

I'll tell you why I don't like it.

This has to get crankier see?
- Crankier?

I know how to do it.

Just corrugate it.

Wanna try it?

Oh God.
Heaven help us!

You need one less corrugation.

Like that, flatter.
- Two?

Yeah, two is great.

See how it works?
- Yep.

That is so stupid looking
it?s great!

It?s so stupid looking?
- Isn?t it?

It?s just.
Eee. Yeaaah!

I always liked making
things with my hands.

I remember my grandmother

used to get a sack of
woodcuttings for the wood-stove.

She?d open the sack and throw
the stuff out on the floor.

And sit down on the floor with
me and start building things.

We made cities and freeways.

It was so much fun!

When I was struggling ?whaddya
want to be when you grow up?'

Somehow I kept remembering sitting
on the floor with the blocks.

I thought, ?maybe I could
do something like that?.

Do you remember the first
time you met Frank, Ed?

In the early 60s.

he was completely aligned
with artists and I found

that interesting somebody who was always

at art exhibits and parties with artists

not too many architects
mixed with artists.

My colleagues who were
doing architecture,

were making fun of what I was doing.

So I didn?t have much
of a support system,

I had a kinda blank stare.

And here were these funny artists
that I just loved ? their work.

Were treating me like
I was part of the team.

the artists weren?t wed to tradition.

They could do whatever they want
and they?d respond on a gut level.

I don?t think they?re
heavy intellectuals.

I?m not saying they were stupid.

But, they didn?t come out of a school.

So they did what felt right.
What looked right, they manipulate things.

And push the limits without the
feeling of tradition or history.

And I think Frank got to the
feeling about architecture, y?know,

?Hey, you get an idea,
why don?t you try it!?.

Berta found the house.

It was comfy and had a little garden

and we could afford it.

I realized I had to do something
to it before we moved in.

I loved the idea of
leaving the house intact.

I came up with the idea of
building the new house around it

The idea was this
little bungalow would give

Frank a kind of laboratory.

We were told there were ghosts.

I decided they were ghosts of cubism.

The windows, I wanted to make them look
they were crawling out of this thing.

At night, because this glass is tipped

it mirrors the light in.

So when you?re sitting at this table

you see the moon in the wrong place.

it reflects here.

and you think it?s up there and you
don?t know where the hell you are.

Frank seems to live in the moment.

#DENNIS HOPPER - ACTOR#
#LIVES IN A HOUSE BUILT BY GERHY#

I?d like to think that I do, but Frank
really does creatively live in the moment.

He takes an idea that someone
says, and finds out and what

they think they want and then
suddenly, he?s creating it.

The kind of materials
that he chooses to use.

I like to think of them as
used as building factories,

or building something that
we don?t think of as a house.

Let me tell you how
he finished his house.

One day he went up to shave in
the bathroom, and there was no light,

so he picked up a hammer,
and knocked a hole in

the ceiling, into the California
sun, and then he shaved by it.

At the same time as I did this house,
I was building Santa Monica Place.

The night Santa Monica
Place opened, we had

a dinner here with the
president of the Company,

and he says to me,
?What the hell is this?

I said, well I was experimenting,

He said ?do you like it?
He said you must like it.

I said, ?I do.'

He said, ?Well if you like this,
you can?t possibly like that?,

and he pointed, towards
Santa Monica Place.

And I said, ?you?re right, I don?t?.

And he said
?So why did you do it'

I said ?I had to make a living.'

And he said, ?Stop it!? don?t do that.

Now at that moment,
forty-five people in my office

were working on projects for him.

And he and I shook hands that night
and decided to quit everything.

It was like jumping off a cliff.

And I was so happy from then on.

I mean, even with all the stress
of it, it just made me very happy.

#SPILLER RESIDENCE-1979#
#VENICE, CALIFORNIA#

#NORTON RESIDENCE-1984#
#VENICE, CALIFORNIA#

#WINTON GUEST HOUSE-1987#
#WAYZATA, MINNESOTA#

#SIRMAI PETERSON RESIDENCE-1988#
#THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA#

Your decision to say no.
How did you go about that?

How did you assume you
would generate projects?

You get work through other
architects and designers,

mostly people I?d worked with
before, that liked my work,

and would bring me into projects.

It was touch and go you remember
I was always going bankrupt.

I know you were going to say that.

I still feel that even
though it?s not true.

Yeah I know, I know.
I can remember that.

I always thought I was pretending
to be a director. - Really?

Well, then at some
point it just went away.

And I felt, ok I?m a director.
I guess I?m a director now.

People started coming around and
saying things like, that I was talented.

That something
was going on.

When I was a kid my father
used to draw with me.

That was something I just loved doing.

What did you draw?

The only thing I remember.
I was about 13.

I drew a picture of
Theodore Herzl when I was in

Hebrew school.

And I remember the Rabbi pinning

it up on the board, telling
my mother in Yiddish that

I had ?Goldene H?nt?,
I had Golden Hands.

we used to go to a summer
place in Northern Ontario.

And my mother had this
lady analyze handwriting.

The lady analyzed my handwriting and

said that someday I was going
to be a famous architect.

I don?t think that you
and I have ever talked

about how the architecture started.

I took a class in perspective,

with Mr Workman, and I failed.

I got an F.

I couldn?t stand it so I went back
and took it again, and got an A.

Then I took a class at USC in ceramics.

The ceramic teacher said
?I have a hunch you should

take an architecture class,
'I'm going to enroll you at night.

Every Monday night there's
an architecture class.'

Got an A in the class.

And they recommended I go
into Second Year Architecture.

Then in the middle of
Second Year my teacher said

?Frank this isn?t for you,
you should get out of here.

It didn?t mean shit to me. I didn?t.

Aw wait a minute, this guy says to you this
is not for you and it didn?t devastate you?

It devastated me, but I didn?t give up.

And that was just before
the name change so.

Y?know you could rationalize
it as anti Semitism.

When did you change the name?

Ah, 1954 I think

What made you change it?
- My wife, my ex wife.

When she wanted something she just

got it.

So I was pussy-whipped
more than...

And it was hard.

For five years I would be introduced

as Frank Gehry and I?d
say ?My name was Goldberg?.

We're going to bring the walls
in tighter and make them pourous.

That means these can't be solid glass.

We work back and forth between
the planning and the models.

So you make a bunch of plans and

then you try it on the model.

And then you come back and regroup.

So it?s a give and take because if this

doesn?t work, that doesn?t work.

This is the Museum of
Tolerance building in Jerusalem.

This is the bookstore.

What?s the material?
- I don?t know yet.

Probably be metal.

This is the Grand Hall.

You can imagine the kind of,
character of the light, coming through

This is a smaller version?

I always work on two
or three scales at once.

Keeps me real. - By changing scale,
why does that keep you real?

Because in my head it keeps me
thinking of the real building.

I don?t get enamored with
the object, these things.

I see, and you could.
- Yeah, It could become jewellery.

This could become the object of desire.

We started with this.

And there?s where the
transition happened here

this would be enormously
expensive and looks chaotic

Now, here it is here.

Wow!

Everything begins with the models.

The problem is the world runs on paper.

So we?ve had to devise ways
of automating drawings, so that

we can continue to feed
building departments and

inspectors and agencies and contracts.
#JIM GLYMPH - PARTNER, SOFTWARE SPECIALIST#

And the legal system, that are all
aligned against doing it this way.

What we have done is
elaborate on ways of digitizing

those models to bring them
into the computer so that

we can go from the
three-dimensional model to

two-dimensional drawings.

What it did was embolden
Frank to go farther,

he could actually be
more sculptural with more

confidence and with more accuracy.

What was critical was to bring the

technology into Frank?s
process in a way that

didn?t change him, or his process.

In the old days when you try to

document the building in two dimensions,
#SVEN NEUMANN AND EDWIN CHAN#

with a plan, with a
section, with an elevation,

your understanding
and your way to be able

to describe the building
is very limited, and the

contractor and the people
who are building it have to,

there?s an element of
interpretation there.

Whereas with this particular
process the level of

precision allows the
designer more flexibility,

and freedom to explore the shapes and
forms and the geometry of the building.

This model would get
sent to the contractor.

And then they would take that information,
#TIM PAULSON - 3D MODELING MANAGER#

extract it into a computer file and
send that directly to the manufacturer.

So theoretically there
is no need for paper,

unless they wan't it as a veryfication.

Frank still doesn?t know how to use a
computer, except to throw it at somebody.

But, he understood that this was an amazing
#THOMAS KRENS - DIRECTOR, GUGGENHEIM FUND#

tool that was suited to

his ability to pick up this cup,

crumple it up, stick it
on top of this building

and say, ?That?s an
interesting shape, let?s see

if we can take that shape
into some sort of design.

I love the shaping I can
do when I?m sketching.

And it never
occurred to me

that I would do it in a building.

The first thing I built of like that is

Vitrain in Germany.

I was in a band, touring Europe.
#BOB GELDOF - MUSICIAN#

I was into the fifth
week and was in that,

twilight state that occupies
your days when on tour.

my head was banging
against the condensated

window of a mid December afternoon.

And I was just looking out
at the fields of Germany.

And across a plain green
field, suddenly this alarming

structure reared up and
jolted out of this state.

We got to Freiburg and I asked
?What was it I?d just seen,.

And they said,
?Oh that must have been Vitra?.

#VITRA FURNITURE MUSEUM - 1989#
#WEIL AM RHEIN, GERMANY#

I started playing with the spiral stair.

I loved the way that curve

read against the rectilinear.

I tried to draw it with
descriptive geometry.

But when the guy built it,

there?s a kink in it.

The drawing didn?t represent
what really happened.

I got frustrated and asked
the guys in the office,

isn?t there a better way
to describe these things,

because I like to play
with curved shapes.

If I could just describe them.

That?s what led us to the computer.

To my knowledge it?s
the first building where

that new freedom and
new movement came.

#ROLF FEHLBAUM - CHAIRMAN, VITRA#
The snake, for instance,

that staircase is a snake,
and that was something very new for me.

Because I come from Switzerland.

A very static country, a
very static architecture.

And I think that the attraction was that

there was something strange,
a bit messy, but in the

end, these forces
unleashed found a new order.

Architects have a lot to answer for,

in as much as it is shite
99% of the time, and,

depresses people on their way to work,

And I adhere to an
English writer?s dictum ?

Auberon Waugh, the son of Evelyn Waugh ?

who suggested that should you meet an

architect at a party,
the best thing one could

do is hit them! I go
along with this until I,

encountered Frank?s work.

I grew up in Canada.

I used to go to lectures on Friday
nights at the University of Toronto.

I went to a lecture when I was 16.

It was actually November,

1946.

I went back afterwards
to find out who the guy

was that gave the lecture.

There was a white haired man got up

and spoke about stuff he was doing.

that really appealed to me.

I?d never seen buildings like that.

I didn?t go home and decide
I wanted to be an architect,

that was just in my memory banks.

After I became an architect I realized
that must have been Alvar Aalto.

I would say that my work is closer to

him than any of the other
previous generations.

How many years have you
been seeing Frank?

Thirty-five years.
#MILTON WEXLER - GEHRY'S THERAPIST#

I met him as a patient.

Ed Moses, the painter, sent him over.

Milton took me in.

After the second thing he said

"You?re in limbo with your wife."

He said I?ll treat you if you.

make up your mind, for three

or four months, you
either commit to stay home,

and make it work, or
you leave right now.

So I left his place, and
I left, Got my clothes and

moved to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

I had two daughters and a wife.

He lacked confidence.

He was talking often
about being bankrupt

and he meant more than
just monetary bankruptcy.

He meant bankrupt in his
relationships, bankrupt in his

ability to get his clients
to accept what he was doing.

He was always fighting, as a Jew,
#CHARLES JENCKS - ARCHITECT#

He had to show ?em
that he was a toughie.

I was angry but I wouldn?t express it,

So Milton got me into that group

And for two years I went
and never said a word.

One day they all pounced on me.

They said ?You?ve been sitting here
for two years, judgmental as hell.

and I realized that they were right,

because all of them were saying
it, I couldn?t dismiss it.

He looked up to me as some
kind of mature, adult figure.

Whether true or not,
that?s how he saw it.

When he realized that our roles were

changing, that he in a sense
was becoming the teacher

cos I didn?t know very much
about art or architecture.

I think it helped him to,

take on the role of the adult.

And also instead of trying
to seduce his clients,

I think he took on more adult roles

in relation to his clients.

He began to teach them as
he was trying to teach me.

To tell them what they needed to
see, how they needed to see it.

I think in that sense, my naivet?

was a very valuable
asset in the therapy.

We go through early life,
pre-occupied about ourselves.

The world revolves around our butts.

And as you mature, you
expand into the rest of the

world and you become part
of a world culture and

you, sort of, find out -
the hard way even - that the

world doesn?t revolve around your
butt, and that unless you play team.

A lot of people think that I made

Frank a great architect,
which is total nonsense.

Eh,I didn?t make him famous, he made
me famous ? just the other way around!

Matter of fact, after some
of the publicity about Frank

came out, a number of architects
wanted to come in treatment with me.

I always said no.

I said no because I knew damn well
I could not make them Frank Gehrys.

I can open up the floodgates, but
if there?s no flood back there.

This guy that I studied with,
this great teacher that I had,

used to say that talent
was liquefied trouble.

Y?know there are certain
people where the trouble

doesn?t seep out into another
part of the brain where

it can be transformed
into something else.

All of it is frustration
with something as

it exists that you?re
trying to improve on.

You won?t remember
this but years ago when

we first met, you talked
to me about filmmaking.

I was struggling with

a commercial world.

They weren?t interested
in what I was doing.

And I talked to you about it one night.

And you said that you faced the

same commercial world,
and that you made peace

with it by finding this small percentage

of space in that commercial world

where you could make a difference.

Man, that was amazing to me, Sydney.

I have never forgotten that. If
you hear in my talks after that,

I always talk about it that
way, I say, ?There?s a sliver

of space? I almost use your words!

Basically, and it?s
still more important to me

than architecture, is
Frank?s interest in hockey.

My sons are hockey players.
#MICHEAL EISNER - FORMER CEO WALT DISNEY CO#

I spent hours at hockey rinks from
midnight to six o?clock in the morning.

There were not that many around LA.

And I would bump into this
guy who was not 22 years old.

I just struck up this
relationship with this person.

I was looking for the
next generation of American

architects, he was on the list of
architects who were pushing the envelope.

We bought a hockey team.
We needed a practice rink.

He designed for us the hockey
rink in downtown Anaheim.

It is a piece of sculpture
sitting in this town.

#DISNEY ICE - 1995#
#ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA#

And I think that and Bilbao and a
couple of other things are his best work.

The inside is reminiscent of those hockey
rinks that Frank grew up with in Canada;

all wood, all trusses, looks very

traditional, looks like
you could be nostalgic for

being in Toronto in 1940-something.

It is a double rink.

The outside is two, like,
well, I dunno, breasts?

I dunno, they?re like this,
so it?s a strange woman!

You give Frank the,
the functionality.

Make sure that in the hockey
rink you have the workout room

and the locker rooms,
and all that stuff.

And you?re on Frank that way.
And then he delivers the picture.

Do you ever think of architectural
shapes unrelated to a job?

No, well.

I mean if I?m sitting around the house and
I put some music on, and the music

will suggest some sort of movement,, and

I?ll start thinking of shots.

I?m just wondering if there?s any.
- Yeah, there is.

When I saw that painting, this one

So this is in the Sainsbury
Wing, British Museum.

It?s a Hieronymus Bosch.

If you look at it,
this is a composition,

and I start thinking of it them
as a composition of buildings.

This is the floor plan
of the Israeli project

and creating a composition.

Mm, that?s exactly
- Now it?s not literal.

But I just find those kinds
of inspirations, and they

you just file them away somehow,
you don?t even know you?re doing it.

It comes out, right?
- Yeah.

That?s exactly what I?m
talking about. Where

where it?s disconnected
from a specific job.

Once I saw this, that way.

I mean, I?d actually seen
this painting before, and never

connected with it like I did that day.

And I got to the painting
and it dropped me.

y?know, like I felt the, the
ground cut out from under my legs,

it was so powerful. And
I saw it as architecture.

I think that?s what gives me confidence.

Once you get it embedded,
you do it, because

you?re confident that
it?s going to work.

And I think what some
of my colleagues do.

they think of architecture
in a hermetic way.

It?s, it?s X.

And it?s not X plus, it?s not X minus.

It?s X. It?s got
restrictions, it?s got rules.

If you do this with it.

It ain?t architecture any more.

Everything?s been done before,
in some way or another.

The only thing that
changes is the technology.

What bugs me are these goddamn rules

that my profession has, as to
what fits, and what doesn?t.

There is a certain threatening
aspect to taking the leap.

But once you try that.

Once you say, ?Ok I have
a right?, you can?t stop.

#GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO - 1997#
#BILBAO, SPAIN#

I understand what you mean that
everything has been done before,

but I haven?t seen a
building like Bilbao.

It?s gotten more sensual, and musical.

Where did all that come from?

I think it just evolved.

I was looking for a
way to express feeling in

three-dimensional objects.

You know, if you go back in history,
if you go into Chartres Cathedral,

it drops you to your knees.

He just let go.

He began to develop all
of the ideas that he?d been

beginning to work with
#MILDRED FRIEDMAN - WRITER, CURATOR#

and went the whole way there.

I don?t think there?s a building
that comes anywhere near it in

inventiveness in this
period of our history.

I swear I don?t know why,

it moved me just as much at
#PHILIP JOHNSON - ARCHITECT#

the end of two days as it
did when I first walked in.

Well he sees that the whole reason for

being an artist is that moment

in somebody?s eye when you?ve
reached them. - That?s it!

The most impressive cathedral at

the end of the 20th century is to
#NORMAN ROSENTHAL#

me, without question,
the museum in Bilbao.

You see it and you
gasp with astonishment!

It?s like a vision
of a kind of paradise.

I don?t even know him, I?m
not an intimate of his at all.

It has reminiscences of things.

You walk down into the entrance and
#JULIAN SCHNABEL - ARTIST, FILMMAKER#

you feel like you?re in Luxor.

It has the scale of Egypt.

What?s important is to be satisfied
with what you and the light.

See, that?s the one thing that
Frank understands, is light.

See, it?s the shape of light as it hits

another shape.
oh boy oh boy.

And then, as you put
it, it?s peripheral.

Architecture is nothing but peripheral.

When Bilbao came up we moved
on a lightening track.

The Guggenheim would select
three architects: Frank Gehry,

Arata Isosaki and Coop Himmelblau.

Each firm would be given $10,000,

one site visit and three weeks
to come up with a concept.

I remember we rented a suite
of rooms, in Frankfurt.

We flew up there on the 17th of July,

assembled all the models,
spent a day in deliberations

and when we emerged, Frank
was selected as the architect.

#JUAN IGNACIO VIDARTE
- DIRECTOR GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO#

I think, eh, I don?t know who
said this, I think it was a British

journalist, but I think he said
that this looked like it was an

object from outer space but which
had landed here a century ago.

So it?s foreign in the sense that
it has nothing to do with any of the

buildings which are
around, but at the same time

there is a a quality of it which
makes it belong to its place.

You take this out of here and nobody

would understand the city now.

We have 350,000 inhabitants

in the downtown.

The first year we
received 700,000 visitors.

And then a kind of community
#NEREA ABASOLO - JOURNALIST, BILBAO#

self-esteem has increased so much.

We have moved from admiring
the architect to be proud

of being the clever ones
who did this project and

have chosen this architect,
and we have this building

which the whole world admires.

When I see a building like
the building that Frank made,

I want to stick my stuff in there.

It makes me feel encouraged,

it makes me feel like, Hey,
there?s somebody that?s, like,

setting up an arena where
something incredible could occur.

He threw down the glove

let?s put something
in here that can really

take somebody into that
transcendental state

that you feel when you?re making art.

We need some sort of naysayer
in this whole discussion,

and if that?s me, that?s fine.
#HAL FOSTER - PROFESSOR OF ART, PRINCETON#

But I am ambivalent about his work.

He has used the expanded field of art,

the expanded field of sculpture.

As sculpture and art in
general became bigger,

broader, moved out into

wider and wilder sites.

When it came time to make
a museum, Gehry used that

expanded scale as an
opportunity to trump it,

in effect, with a building that

really functions as a spectacle.

So I?m not sure how well it serves art.

Either you believe in the white cube,

or you are Frank and you say that
artists want to be challenged.

I think museum people are very torn.

The great thing about
Bilbao is that it does both things.

What Frank calls the ?stodgy
galleries?, the very very simple,

sort of old fashioned rooms.

And then he did a lot of spaces
that are really extraordinary.

For me, I like to have enough room.

I feel very comfortable in his spaces.

He understands scale.

And if it does compete with the art,
maybe that art isn?t good enough.

Everyone seemed to embrace

this building and this
architect as the great

new form, the great new
form-giver of our time.

And I just, I just don?t,
I just don?t see it.

There are moments where I think where
he has delivered the goods too quickly.

He has given his clients
too much what they want.

Kind of a sublime space that overwhelms
the viewer and a spectacular image

that can circulate through the media

and around the world as, as brand.

People have this idea, What
is the architect?s service,

The service was to be appropriate, ok?
#HERBERT MUSCHAMP - THE NEW YORK TIMES#

That was the big word.

Which means ?blend in, nobody
notices, camouflage?.

Y?know, put up a new 70-storey
office building but make

it look like the little
art-deco thing right next door.

So, who gets anything out of that?

You have to not only talk about the freedom
but you also have to talk about the courage

of an architect who had
the conviction to say,

?Well that?s not what
architecture should be

doing and that?s not what
cities should be doing?.

I never expected Bilbao to be the,

kinda, hit it turned out to be.

In fact, when it opened I was
very self-conscious about it,

and thought, ?My God, what have I done?'

Somebody asked me once about
Frank?s ego, and I said, you shouldn?t

be put off by the
Columbo-like exterior the

crumpled raincoat and,
the self effacing manner,

I said, Frank?s got the
biggest ego in the business.

And the reason that I know
this is that he also has

a perception of the process
that instead of reacting

negatively to a criticism,
he?ll basically say the

reverse of what you
might expect somebody with

a big ego to say, ?Let?s just
rip it apart and start again?.

Because he knows that when
he does it a second time

he does it from a higher
plane of knowledge.

Now that?s real ego.

I act like nothing?s happening, y?know?

I?m ?aw shucks. Bubby.?

Whereas inside
I?m ambitious, I?m eager,

I?m, competitive as hell.

But I cover it up.

There is nobody that strives for

excellence that isn?t
competitive in some way,

But even if you and I are in different
business I probably compete with you.

I have this conflict
about that, that, I want to

be a nice guy, I don?t
wanna be in your face,

and yet I am in your
face, I am ambitious.

I think that?s the
same with the work, it?s

you know, when I got
to Bilbao and saw it for

the first time I got embarrassed.

I thought ?Oh my God, how
did they let me do this?

Well, you also have to consider
his wife, Berta.

She?s part of the whole equation too.
#ED RUSCHA - ARTIST#

Because, y?know, he had this,
eh, anger on the one hand.

And then his family life was stabilized,

and that?s probably kept him afloat.

At first they had all kinds of
rough-edged conflict.

For example, Berta
wanted to be married.

Frank had been married and he
didn?t care about being married.

Then he decides, ?Ok, I?ll get married.

He became this much
softer, much more accepting,

much more loving person.

Less defiant, less
uncertain, less angry.

He seems so calm and
together and sweet.

And yet his architecture shows

something completely
opposite.

There are sort of rules about

architectural expression.

Screw that!

I?m going to do what I do the best,

and if it?s no good, the
marketplace will deny it.

#MILTON WEXLER - THERAPIST#
I think as he became more

confident in his
relationships, I think that

he became more daring in the willingness

to fantasize far-out stuff.

I?m watching everything, y?know.

I can get excited about some fashion
thing, or some crystal chandelier.

I?m tempted to say it?s
Frank?s right brain.

There?s something, in that right brain,

that allows him to take
those free associations,

and then make them practical realities.

If you asked me to simply
describe Frank?s work,

I?d call him a contemporary
Cubist sculptor.

Frank uses shapes and
forms unlike anyone has

ever used them in the
building of a structure.

Years ago a reporter asked
me how I get my inspiration.

Just intuitively I pointed
to the wastebasket beside me.

And I said, ?Look in there, y?see.

think about the caverns and the spaces

and the textures in that waste basket?.

You know you can look
anywhere and find inspiration.

It was by accident that I
got into the fish image.

My colleagues were starting to
replay Greek temples.

Y?know in the post-modern thing, I
don?t know, when was that. the 80s.

And eh.

That was hot, everybody
was re-doing the past.

I said, y?know,

Greek temples are anthropomorphic.

And three hundred million
years before man was fish.

If you wanna, if you gotta go
back, if you?re insecure about

going forward,

dammit, go back three
hundred million years.

Why are you stopping at the Greeks?

So I started drawing
fish in my sketchbook.

and then, I started to realize

that there was something in it.

You know that story of his
famous Formica furniture?

Frank looked at this material,
which is the most pristine material

in the world, and it?s so
uptight, that he said to

himself, ?It?s not me,
y?know, I can?t do this.

And he just, eh, was rattling around,
and broke it up into little pieces.

He took it and he threw
it on the floor in fury.

And some of the pieces suddenly
looked to him like fish scales,

He immediately thought ?AHA!?

#GEHRY FISH LAMPS - 1980#

A good friend of mine was
designing this building.

He said why don?t you put a
little sculpture on the corner

This hotel is a Ritz
Carlton and the guy who

owned Ritz Carlton at the time
was in Tennessee, in Nashville.

He couldn?t come to the meeting when we
made the presentation, so he sent his guy.

And he kept getting down,

crouching down and taking this picture.

A few days later the client
called me up and said,

?We got problems. I?m
building a multi-million

dollar hotel and I ain?t
going to have my patrons

looking up the asshole of a fish!?

#FISH - 1992#
#BARCELONA, SPAIN#

Do you recognize big changes

in your work over the last 30 years?

Well, my starting days as an
architect I was involved with

less expensive buildings.

I couldn?t afford to pay for that

beautiful detail.

In the early 60s, Venice
was a place of cheap rents.

The artists would come
in. Larry Bell was one

and Larry began putting

up these interior walls, in his studio.

and leaving them bare,
where all the scars show.

And showing the scars

became a kinda thing that a

lot the artists were doing
out of practicality, and

then finally out of a kind
of style thing, that Frank

also began waking up to.

I grew up a modernist.
#O'NEILL HAY BARN - 1968#

?Decoration is a sin?.

That?s the mantra of Modernism.

So if you can?t use
decoration, then how do you

humanize a building, how
do you humanize a thing?

Materials could be expressive.

He was really making a statement
that architecture was very much

about the materials as well as
about the design and the look of it.

It was all to do with
making the most of little

bits of throwaway things
such as industrial material.

Picket fence, corrugated
metal and chain link.

#DAVIS RESIDENCE - 1972#
#MALIBU, CALIFORNIA#

Jasper Johns was doing it.
Rauschenberg was doing it.

They would
make beauty with junk.

#GEHRY RESIDENCE - 1978#
#SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA#

When he was doing that chain-link
stuff, he went to Mickey Rudin?s house.

And Rudin said to Frank, ?What are

you doing with that ugly
chain link, how stupid that is.

I mean, you?ll just destroy
the looks of the world.

You?ll make the whole world uncomfortable
with that damn chain-link of yours?.

Frank said, ?Mickey, come on
over to the window, will you?

What do you see out there?

#EDWIN CHAN#
#DESING PARTNER#

You know what?s confusing to
me is what you see from here?

Perhaps what you do is there?s
still kind of a a grade situation.

So it?s like a bridge?
- A little.

Well if you do that,
y?know, you could almost

do that and walk under
it to the lakefront.

That would be the ideal.
- Yeah I know.

I mean if we do this it takes it out
of the realm that I was worried about.

Well I wasn?t worried about that.

I know, you don?t worry about the
same things that I worry about!

I wasn?t worried about
it, I?m more na?ve!

Edwin is more contentious with me
than Craig is, have you noticed? - Yes.

For me that?s great, because it
makes it all much more interesting.

He?s been with me for fifteen years.

For the first five years
he was here, he didn?t talk.

Now, fifteen years later I
can?t stop him from talking.

I don?t think I could do the
buildings alone any more.

I?ve gotten so used to

the team to play with.

He surrounds himself with good people.

What he likes to do is, he gets

a vague idea, kinda very loosely.
#CHUCK ARNOLDI - ARTIST#

?Well, y?know, something
kinda like, something

kinda like this, kinda
likeyou know, what I?m

thinking is something kinda like.
I mean is something kinda like that.

this kinda thing is more what I got
in mind, you?know what I mean?

And the guys?ll be standing around and
they?ll say, ?Yeah, I think I got it Frank?,

and they?ll run off and they?ll do some
stuff and they?ll come back and he goes.

?No no no, not quite like
that, I thought I said a

little bit more like this.

you know. gosh, you guys
have just, y?know, I want you

to really kinda more like
that, you know what I mean?

No but if you see the stair,
like you see here, where it ends.

Where it?s sticking out?
- Yeah, do that.

The communication is almost
non-verbal.

A quick sketch, or a reference to

a painting or a piece of sculpture
and he?ll say, ?Try this?.

I?d rather go to that
middle color titanium.

That would be beautiful.
See that red titanium?

But are you sure it?s
not going to be too red?

The other day we were
doing our offices.

He sent me a fax, where I was, and

he said ?Would you mind
if we flipped the plan?

So that?s typical Edwin. You
know, I would do that myself,

if he wasn?t there. But he?s there.

I think of it as an opportunistic thing.

Maybe one of the kids in
the office, just the way he

put the model together that
day made me see something.

They see they?re part of it.

So it engenders a
great sense of teamwork,

which gets you to the end.

Craig and I will go home
tonight, individually. separately.

and we?ll agonize
about this.

And we?ll come in tomorrow.
And we?ll say.

and we usually come to the same
conclusion when it?s wrong, right?

And what makes it wrong, is.
What?s wrong is that it?s too easy.

Wait, wait, wait! - Or. or we think
we?re falling into some kind of clich?.

Or we already did it.
- Ah, that?s different.

That?s different than ?too easy?
What do you mean by ?too easy??

Too easy is.
I guess I gotta suffer a little before.

Ah, but that?s neurotic!

How do you tell the difference between
an aesthetic discipline and neurosis?

You know, you hire Frank
because you just love him

and you want him to do
whatever he wants to do.

And people are real
encouraging, ?Oh be far out?.

But he starts getting far
out and they all fall in love.

?Oh I love that!?. Yeah, but he doesn?t.

He wants to change it. Until
it becomes a frustration game

where, ?when are you
going to finish thing?

It looked good forty times
and you?re still going?

What?s exciting to me is the process.

And when people look
at this stuff because

it looks like it just happened.

They don?t realize how much time
and effort went into the incubation.

So I?m always compelled
to explain all that.

do you get the impulse first and that?s
what makes you go after the job?

No, I don?t go after the job anyway.

I wait till the jobs hit me on the head.

I guess I don?t like rejection.

So I just wait until
they just come to me.

Because when you go after it
and get rejected, I hate that.

And I accept the projects based
on whether I like them the people.

Frank has figured out, which some
architects don?t quite figure out,

is that the most important influence
on the design is the client.

And if there is a terrific
client to work with,

you get a terrific building.
If there isn?t, you don?t.

I started talking about water.
#BARRY DILLER - CEO, IAC INTERACTIVE GROUP#

because he likes
boats, and I like boats.

I said to him that my real dream,

here, would be, that one day,

I would sail up the
Hudson on my new boat,

and as I got past

Battery Park, and coming
up the Hudson, there,

next to the water,
would be this building.

And the next thing, Frank
did his little squiggles,

and it?s essentially that!

And what it was that he
created was sailcloth.

I mean, the idea of making a white

building is, is a little insane!

How do you make a white
building that from the inside,

actually, you can look out.

So then began this, this odyssey.

And also, it was, let?s do
the whole thing in glass.

Nothing else but read glass.

No steel, no aluminum,

just glass.

any problem that comes up,
he finds some solution to,

there?s some thing that

you never figured out,
that he goes away and

comes back and solves it.

What?s the process like?
Did he ask you questions?

Did you guys just
free-associate together?

Did you just talk?
- I don?t.

It?s not like, eh, y?know,

would you like square or round windows?

Or would you like eh,
y?know, flocked wallpaper?

I mean, no. It?s not a query.

He doesn?t really ask you.

He smells, y?know? You
talk, I mean, he sucks up

whatever is going on in the room.

With Frank, the work of models,
constantly screwing around with them,

ripping something out.
You know?

Or just molding it almost.

It?s like clay work.

Eh, is such a profoundly
creative process.

I mean, it?s not like
any building project

I?ve ever understood.

Literally if you go back and
you take the little squiggle,

the whatever it?s referred
to in the pro jargon?

Whatever that is?
That?s that!

I think I have a talent not
for recognizing artistic genius,

but for recognizing talent.
#PETER LEWIS - CHAIRMAN PROGRESSIVE CO#

I loved what he was doing.

And, I kept getting, during the

from the day we started,
I kept getting richer,

and busier.

And he kept becoming
more and more well known.

And then as the adventure of the
design of the house proceeded,

it was wonderful.
I mean, it was so exciting.

I?d go out there and he
was able to do research,

on material, and design
things that he never

woulda had the money to do. And I said,

?Look, you just give me
bills for whatever you do,

just keep sending me bills, and if
I have a problem I?ll talk to you?.

And I never had a problem. They
turned out to be six million dollars.

Jesus!
- And, if I had to do it over again?

I?d do it again. - Well, what
happened? Why didn?t it get built?

Oh. Well, we went on
for about twelve years.

And I think what happened
between the age of fifty and sixty,

I no longer wanted to live in a
big house, or give big parties...

My lifestyle changed.

What started out to be a dream would?ve
been a disaster I was building a museum.

When we sat down for that last meeting and
the number was eighty two million dollars!

That was it!

The trouble with having the glass
here is that the top of it goes up into

this gable, which is really awkward.

I liked this awkwardness here before.

This is a building we did, pro bono

for the memory of a friend of ours.

That was the original design for Maggie?s
Place up there, that little model.

I had these nightmares, that
Maggie was talking to me, and that

that was too much architecture
and she wanted me to tone it down.

And I threw out the thing
and started over again.

Having worked with Maggie
he understood the idea

of the center, which is to be an
informal space for cancer patients.

#MAGGIE'S PLACE - 2002#
#DUNDEE, SCOTLAND#

He took on this commission at his
own cost, because he was a great

friend of Maggie?s, you know,
eh, we?re not paying him a penny.

And em, out of love for Maggie, I
think he really is committed to a

notion of an architecture
that relates to healing.

Informality, non-institutionality
and a certain amount of

humor and places for
reflection are very important.

It?s a very nice place to get up
and look out over the landscape.

That?s terribly important
for the cancer sufferers,

to see their illness in a context

which is bigger than themselves.

Why did you come to Los Angeles?

My father got sick.

Y?know it was those days when they
said, Go to the southern climate.

He was broke, he lost everything,

What kind of work did he try to do?

He became a truck driver for
Yankee Doodle Pop Company,

and I got a job truck driving
in the Valley, for a cousin.

This is where we lived, in here.

We just didn?t have anything.
It was really rough.

You got a job as a truck driver
how long did you do that?

Two or three years.

I delivered a breakfast nook
to Roy Rogers and Dale?s house.

I came from Canada, I didn?t
know from movie stars, right?

I couldn?t believe it. And
they treated me like family,

they invited me to Christmas dinner!

How do you get out of driving
a truck to something else?

What I was interested in as a kid then.

my cousin used to take me
up flying, and I loved it.

So I got a job washing airplanes.

Where did this come in terms of. - Before
architecture, before architecture.

So I was freaked out
in love with flying.

So I could?ve gone that
way, y?know, if somebody had

just taught me how to fly, I
probably would?ve been happy.

It?s funny how it feels almost fragile

the way people discover things that are

meaningful for their
whole lives, y?know.

I feel the same way.

If I have a big envy in my
life, it?s about painters.

I wish I was a painter.

What I?m fascinated with
is the moment of truth.

There?s the canvas,
you?ve got a brush and you

got this goddamn palette
of colors, and whaddya do?

What?s your first move?

I love that dangerous place!

Have you ever tried to paint?
- Never! I wouldn?t dare.

because I wouldn?t know what to do.

I know how to do a building.

Since a building
ultimately is a surface,

it?s ultimately got
something to do with painting.

But I?ve never been able to achieve

what in my mind is a painterly surface.

Oh yeah?

Y?know you look at the Charioteer,

that sculpture in Delphi.

And it says ?Artist Unknown?.

And it?s one of the most
beautiful pieces of sculpture,

when I saw it I started
crying, Sydney, because.

How powerful that is, that
the guy doesn?t have his name,

That?s antithetical
to democracy I think.

And I?m hoping that out
of democracy comes an

expression that is the
consensus is democracy

How does that express itself?
It expresses itself chaotically.

And that chaos, we?re
starting to feel, is beautiful.

Frank believes in accidents,
but I think it?s important to say

that some of his
accidents are failures, and

some of his work is extremely ugly.

People shy away from saying
that because they are.

In a sense his reputation
is so strong now.

Of the anti-Frank Gehry contingent,
is there anybody that hits the spot?

Well, when I see something
negative, I usually try it on.

I try it on for size.

I wear it, I think, well
maybe there?s something here.

I must get something out of it,

But I don?t digest it intellectually,
I don?t take it in as a.

?Oh I gotta do this,
or I gotta do that?.

A reporter just did a
thing saying that Toronto

deserved to get a Museum of Modern Art,

instead they?re getting a
second-rate Frank Gehry building.

Even Marty Filler,
who I like, wrote about

Chicago and said he thought
it was ?Logo-tecture?.

So, that was his way of, of
saying I?m repeating myself.

How does that affect you,
when you read that?

I just keep going.
I don?t? pay attention.

I mean, what am I gonna do?

#WHY ALL THE HOOPLA?
HAL FOSTER#

#HULKING MASS?#
#GENIUS OR A MESS?#

#PERVERSE#
#SPECTACLE, OPPRESSIVE#

#COMPLETE DISREGARD, MONSTRISITIES#
#UGLY#

I think of it as water going down
a gutter, and suddenly this wonderful

bubble has come up above
all the other water.

And they can?t wait to,
like, pop the bubble and bring

it down under the water and
push it down into the bottom.

As a critic I think it?s, it?s.

incumbent upon me to, to
make an emphatic stand.

To, kind of, hold a line of disagreement

so that other people
are not simply caught up

in the culture of
affirmation, the culture of

embrace, that has surrounded Gehry.

This is the only history we?re
going to be living in, ok?

This is the one, we can read
about the ones that came before,

this is the one that?s happening now.

And fortunately there are a
few people who understand how to

respond to these challenges
and Frank Gehry is one of them.

There is only so much
that architecture can do.

But what he?s serving is the

?so much?, and trying to realize it.

If you had to criticize Frank,
what would you criticize?

I wouldn?t.
I wouldn?t criticize him.

Because I think it?s like, eh, y?know,

flies flying around
on the neck of a lion.

It?s like, y?know, watching a movie

like Apocalypse Now, and saying

that you think that Robert
Duvall is over the top.

Because buildings take
so long to realize,

by the time I get to the finished
building, I don?t like it.

What takes over, what makes you
forget all the little trivia,

is then the way the
light hits the material

the reflections you didn?t
have in the models and drawings.

That?s how it lives.
#WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL- 2003, L.A#

The only thing an architect
can do is be optimistic

about how it interacts with
the surrounding buildings.

It can be a passive player, it can be a
stoic player, it can be a passionate player.

I don?t like the Chandler.

But it?s here, and it?s
part of the community.

So you have to respect that I think
that?s like being a good neighbor.

I tried to make a building that would

preserve the iconic
importance of the Chandler.

To defer to that I decided
to break down the scale of the

Disney Hall into smaller pieces,
so it?s not the same language.

It relates to the Chandler

Now the shapes of the exterior of
Disney Hall are based on sailing.

When you?re wing-on-wing, with the wind
behind you, it forms a beautiful space.

And if you look at the front of
Disney Hall, it?s wing-on-wing,

it?s the two sails,
and you?re at the helm.

This is the foyer, and
here, when you look up,

you?ll be able to see the levels.

No matter how great the design is,

if it doesn?t sound great,
it?s going to be a failure.

Frank was very clear
about this from the beginning.

#ESA-PEKKA SALONEN#
#MUSIC DIRECTOR, LA PHILHARMONIC#

He said, ?This is a hall for the
orchestra, and this is a building for music.

And that has to be the first priority, and
everything else is of lesser importance.

And I thought this was quite
a statement from an architect.

It?s very unusual that an artist
such as Frank puts the ego bit to a,

sort of, lower level of importance than
the actual function of the building.

Ok, let?s get the hell
out of here then.

Holy shit! Where?s the
beer, where?s the beer?

Do you ever get depressed
when it?s finished?

Like post-partum blues?

A little bit.
Yeah, I do.

Well you know that better
than I do! You can?t let go.

When I let go is a year
later after it?s test of time,

didn?t leak. people like it.

Then I sort of let myself
out a bit and enjoy it.

Do you ever wonder what
part of you did that?

Where did that come from?
- Yes, oh yeah, all the time.

I say, ?How the. Where
did that come from?

Yeah, I do.

It?s like a magic trick.
I call it a magic trick.

But you know when I was a
kid taking that ceramics class

at SC before I came an
architect, Glenn Lukins.

I?d you?d put the glaze on and the

stuff, you?d put it into
the kiln, and it would come

out looking so beautiful
sometimes, and you?d say

I?d say to Glenn, ?God that?s
beautiful, I didn?t. how did that happen?

And he said, ?Just
claim credit for it from

now on, because somehow
you made it happen!?

So you haven?t seen any
of this all together?

When I came last it was a mess.

Looked very precarious, like
it might not happen right.

#DG BANK - 2001#
#BERLIN, GERMANY#

You get scared and you wonder, ?God
what are these people going to think?

I wanna hide under the covers!

I know the feeling very well.
- I know you do!

The structural engineer on this is a
guy from Stuttgart, J?rg Schlaich.

He?s my age, and I think
he?s probably the best living

structural engineer in the world.

You know why this floor is like this?

Because the offices down below, by code,

have to have a certain amount of light,

and the only way we could
get it, and to have this

balcony, was to make it a glass floor.

You know, I?m not going to get
to live here, and stay here.

So I?m only going to see
it today, and I leave.

And maybe I?ll see it three
or four more times in my life.

For me, it?s like one of my children.

and I love it.

So what?s next Frank?

Is there anything you haven?t
done, that you want to do?

I?m superstitious, so I never say that.

When you?re a younger
architect and starting out,

you?re seeking some kind
of impossible perfection.

You could spend your life thinking
about this ephemeral building that would

be great to do y?know, it would be the.

the capstone of my career.

You realize, as you mature,
that there?s no ?there?.

You ain?t gonna get there.

A great many people come
to me hoping they can change

themselves and, settle
their anxieties, their

problems in their marriage, or whatever.

They want to know how
to handle life better.

When an artist comes to me, he wants
to know how to change the world.