‘He has an ability, like Picasso or Le Corbusier, to be ahead of the game. He is always inventing new moves; he takes high risk chances. He is ex-centric, in that he is always pulling away from the centre.'
Charles Jencks
Frank Gehry is one of the world’s greatest living architects. His most celebrated achievement is the £64 million Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in nothern Spain which opened in October 1997 and has been visited by nearly two million people. Experiencing Gehry’s Guggenheim is to confront urban sculpture of breathtaking proportions. Vast organic blocks clad with thin silver titanium sheets, like fish scales, reflect the changing light of the sky and the constantly shifting weather in the Bay of Biscay.
Remarkably Gehry’s first building in the UK is to be in Dundee. He is designing a small cancer caring centre to be sited beside Ninewells Hospital, overlooking the Tay. This will be the second ‘Maggie's Centre’. The first, designed by DCA’s architect Richard Murphy, opened in Edinburgh in 1996. Maggie's Centres are named after Maggie Keswick Jencks who died of cancer in 1995. She recognised the need for well designed, welcoming places where those with cancer could relax and find support outside the pressurised environment of a large hospital.
As if a corner of Gehry’s studio has been transported to Dundee, the exhibition will be cluttered with sketches, computer visualisations and multi-coloured process models of recent projects including his Dundee building.
Gehry’s architecture depends on a unique process of design, and this is the focus of the exhibition. In his office at Santa Monica there are 120 architectural staff, and 90 of these are making models. After an initial sketch by Gehry each project is developed through a series of models, a technique which preserves the sculptural vitality of his original vision.
Although Gehry’s designs are finalised in model form, they cannot be realised without computer technology, due to the complexity of the interlocking curves. Gehry uses a software called CATIA, designed in France for the design or Mirage jets and adapted by a team of aeroplane designers who are also in his office.
The exhibition is based upon Frank O. Gehry: The Architect’s Studio, a groundbreaking exhibition organised by the Louisiana Museum in Denmark earlier this year. This show was curated by Kirsten Kiser, who has also curated the Dundee exhibition.
We are grateful to Kirsten Kiser, the Louisiana Museum, the Sir John Soane’s Museum, and the Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Trust for their assistance.
A fully illustrated 128 page publication, ‘Frank Gehry’: The Architect’s Studio’ will be available, price £12.50.
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Tracey Kelly, Communications Officer
tel 01382 432318 fax 01382 432294
Andrew Nairne, Director
tel 01382 432290 or 01821 642434
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