Overview
- His studio confirmed the Dec. 5 death, with spokesperson Meaghan Lloyd citing a short respiratory illness at his Santa Monica residence.
- Signature works such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Fondation Louis Vuitton helped redefine city identities and popularized the so‑called Bilbao effect.
- He earned architecture’s highest honors, including the Pritzker Prize in 1989 and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
- Born in 1929 in Toronto to Polish‑Jewish immigrants, he moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, founded his practice in the 1960s and continued designing into his 90s.
- Leaders and institutions, including Canada’s prime minister, California’s governor and the Guggenheim Foundation, hailed his visionary impact in tributes.