Conversations with Frank Gehry

February 9, 2009
With such signature buildings as the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Disney Center in Los Angeles, Frank Gehry has been called “the most famous architect in the world.” These conversations, edited from interviews California-based writer Isenberg (Making It Big
) began with Gehry in the 1980s, cover topics from his first buildings—made as a boy from chips of firewood on his grandmother's floor—to current large-scale projects like a $3 billion redesign for Grand Avenue in downtown L.A. There is talk about the architectural politics of Los Angeles and the practical aspects of running a large architectural office. And while Gehry never name-drops, readers do get a sense of the celebrity and high-finance crowds in which he circulates. Gehry says he has always been more influenced by artists than by other architects, and those influences range from such friends as Robert Rauschenberg to Vermeer and Hieronymus Bosch. Whether designing jewelry or museums, he sketches constantly and his assistants build dozens of models before reaching a final design. Illustrations of these preliminary steps and of realized buildings add a visual component to the wide-ranging and informative conversations. 165 color and 41 b&w illus.

March 15, 2009
In the 1990s, Frank Gehry established himself as one of the greatest architects of all time, with the completion of his celebrated and spectacular Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Since then, he has surmounted this achievement with stupendous success, in terms of both the quality and the quantity of his commissions all over the world. This book of interviews is absolutely fascinatingfor the general public, fans, historians, and scholars alike. It brings together in one book a series of candid interviews that the accomplished Isenberg recorded between 2004 and 2008, embracing Gehry's entire life and career, comprising a kind of verbal autobiography. Gehry emerges in this self-portrait as a man of flesh and blood: unusually humble, painstakingly ethical, and frankly thrilled with the exciting prospects of modern art and architecture. This very accessible, readable volume will be a gold mine for scholars and the general public for generations.Peter S. Kaufman, Boston Architectural Coll.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2009
Arguably todays best-known architect and certainly the most influential, Frank Gehry continues to challenge everyday thoughts about what a building can become. His iconic art museum in Bilbao, Spain, has made every community yearn for a structure that can so instantly become a landmark. In this oral history, Isenberg converses with Gehry about his life and his groundbreaking aesthetic. Gehry describes his origins, his Toronto upbringing, his decision to change his surname from Goldberg, his stint in the army, his education at Harvard under the GI bill, and his encounters with other architects and artists who opened his eyes to new and wondrous possibilities. He credits Los Angeles surging growth in the 1950s and 1960s for many of his innovations. Illustrations bloom throughout the text. Gehrys drawings look like particularly inspired doodles. Photographs of Gehry in his offices and of his planned and completed structures help the reader visualize the physical ideas latent in the architects articulate and disarmingly unpretentious discussions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)