Building Art

July 13, 2015
Pulitzer-winning architecture critic Goldberger (Why Architecture Matters) finds no conflict between avant-garde aesthetics and practical buildings in this appreciative biography of celebrated architect Frank Gehry. Gehry’s low-key personality makes him a dull presence compared to his flamboyant designs. His early infatuation with grungy plywood and chain-link fencing as decorative elements led to the mature style of his acclaimed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, a flagrantly non-Euclidean assemblage of warped, crumpled, billowing shapes sheathed in metal. The book’s drama comes from the struggle to superimpose these buildings over the misgivings of clients, civil engineers, and nonplussed neighbors. Goldberger defends Gehry against charges of being a capricious artiste foisting abstract sculpture on a baffled world; he paints the architect as a down-to-earth sort who designs eminently functional buildings that respond to their surroundings, exhibit continuity with the past, and embrace Earthlings despite looking like crashed spaceships. He contextualizes Gehry’s work with smart discussions of trends in Modernism and the Los Angeles art scene that inspired such trends, and offers his usual shrewd, evocative insights into the look and feel of buildings. Still, his apologia may not shake the reader’s impression that Gehry’s designs are more self-conscious than organic—studied attempts to blow people’s minds with weird-looking structures. Photos. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

July 15, 2015
An admiring life of the celebrated architect who designed, among other notable structures, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Vanity Fair contributing editor Goldberger, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize (Distinguished Criticism, 1984), has published other works on architecture (Building Up and Tearing Down, 2009, etc.) and has known Gehry for decades. His affection and admiration are patent throughout the book. Although he acknowledges some of Gehry's personal weaknesses-e.g., he does not like firing people and passes on such tasks to subordinates-the closest he comes to something full-on negative is when he comments that when Gehry's recent design for an Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., received some noisy opposition, it was just "one of those moments when Babe Ruth strikes out." In many ways, Goldberger presents a traditional biography. He begins with a key event (the opening of a New York City apartment tower in 2011; he returns to it some 350 pages later) and then chronicles some family history before following Gehry, born in Canada in 1929 as Frank Owen Goldberg, a name he would change in 1954. The author takes us through Gehry's schooling, his decision to try architecture, his early struggles, and his eventual ascension to what has been a career to rival that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Goldberger highlights Gehry's pioneering use of design software, credits his most valuable associates (some of whom he later fired), and comments periodically about his relationships with his children (from two marriages), whom he didn't see much, although one son joined the firm and has risen to prominence there. The author ends with the heartaches that all long-living human beings must endure-deaths of loved ones and the decline of health, mental acuity, and creative power. Richly researched, intelligent, and graceful, but some readers may wonder if Gehry has a dark side.

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Starred review from October 1, 2015

This full-length critical study of an important contemporary architect is by one of our finest architectural critics. Following major retrospectives of Frank Gehry's work at Paris's Pompidou Center, this book's publication also coincides with the major exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From his childhood in Toronto, Frank Owen Goldberg (b. 1929) would emerge in Los Angeles, ultimately becoming the world's most innovative modern architect. Winning the prestigious Pritzker Prize secured his place on the world stage; the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the Disney Concert Hall assured Gehry's dominance. Pulitzer Prize winner and former New Yorker architecture critic Goldberger's outstanding volume, the first comprehensive biography of its subject, details Gehry's personal life, his education, his marriages--in essence, his life's journey, and how each major building becomes an integral part of this remarkable artist's evolution. This title was written with the subject's full cooperation and access to Gehry's archives. VERDICT An essential addition to all general library collections, not only those specializing in architecture. Highly recommended for those interested in architecture but also for general readers who want to learn more about an influential contemporary cultural figure and the complexities of major architectural projects. [See Prepub Alert, 3/23/15.]--Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton

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Starred review from September 15, 2015
Pulitzer Prizewinning architecture critic Goldberger has been intrigued with Frank Gehry and his dynamic creations for four decades, and now presents a critically fluent, socially and psychologically acute, and well-constructed comprehensive biography, the first of the most famous architect in the world. Goldberger begins with Gehry's Toronto childhood, when he was Frank Goldberg and his grandmother supplied wood scraps with which they built imaginary buildings, bridges, and even whole cities. The family moved to L.A. in 1947 when Frank was 18, and art classes guided him to architecture. Though he was married with children (leery of anti-Semitism, his first wife insisted on the name change) when he started, Gehry refused to let the pressure to earn income mire him in projects antithetical to his artistic mission. Tireless, prescient, lucky in networking, and enthralled by the challenges and beauty of unconventional shapes and materials, Gehry fought hard to build his demandingly innovative, improbable, arresting, and expressive structures. With avid precision and invaluable insight, Goldberger charts the complicated, punishing battles Gehry waged to construct his ambitious, dreamworld buildings, from private homes to Guggenheim Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Facebook headquarters, and beyond. The result is an involving work of significant architectural history and a discerning and affecting portrait of a daring and original master builder.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)