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An unprecedented, intimate, and richly illustrated portrait of Frank Gehry, one of the world's most influential architects. Drawing on the most candid, revealing, and entertaining conversations she has had with Gehry over the last twenty years, Barbara Isenberg provides new and fascinating insights into the man and his work.

Gehry's subjects range from his childhood--when he first built cities with wooden blocks on the floor of his grandmother's kitchen--to his relationships with clients and his definition of a "great" client. We learn about his architectural influences (including Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright) and what he has learned from Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rauschenberg.

We explore the thinking behind his designs for the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the redevelopment of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, the Gehry Collection at Tiffany's, and ongoing projects in Toronto, Paris, Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere. And we follow as Gehry illuminates the creative process by which his ideas first take shape--for example, through early drawings for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, when the building's trademark undulating curves were mere scribbles on a page. Sketches, models, and computer images provided by Gehry himself allow us to see how so many of his landmark buildings have come to fruition, step by step.

Conversations with Frank Gehry is essential reading for everyone interested in the art and craft of architecture, and for everyone fascinated by the most iconic buildings of our time, as well as the man and the mind behind them.

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Library Journal Review

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 bothÅthe quality and the quantity of his commissions all over the world. This book of interviews is absolutely fascinating-for 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, andÅfrankly thrilled with the exciting prospects of modernÅart and architecture. This very accessible, readable volumeÅwill beÅa gold mine for scholars and the general publicÅfor generations.-Peter S. Kaufman, Boston Architectural Coll. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

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. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Frank Gehry, a Canadian-born architect now in his 70s, works in Los Angeles, a city whose vitality led him to become an architect. His extravagant, idiosyncratic designs for major buildings, often in shiny metal or glittering glass, have made him world-famous. An easy read, this volume by independent scholar Isenberg presents amiable conversations that reveal Gehry's charming ability to focus attention on himself and to present his side of various controversies without antagonizing his opponents. A West Coast outsider, Gehry treats architecture, the most public of arts, principally as one that, after serving its function, expresses his whims and his client's wishes. That self-centeredness, and the flamboyance of his easily identified buildings, reinforces the oft-made claim that Gehry is the most famous architect in America since Frank Lloyd Wright. This work present engaging sketches for numerous projects, a sampling of the models they have bred, and photographs of the final buildings (all small and in color). Lacking is any technical information or a peek at the structural gymnastics these stage-set buildings require. Heavy stock, a strong binding, and an appealing design make this a book laypeople can enjoy. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. C. W. Westfall University of Notre Dame

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Arguably today's 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. Gehry's 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 architect's articulate and disarmingly unpretentious discussions.--Knoblauch, Mark Copyright 2009 Booklist

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Barbara Isenberg writes and lectures about the arts. Formerly a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, she has also written for Time, Esquire, and London's Sunday Times . Her books include Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical and State of the Arts: California Artists Talk About Their Work . She received a Distinguished Artist Award from the Los Angeles Music Center and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. She lives in Los Angeles.