Overview
- He died Friday at his home in Santa Monica at age 96.
- The 1997 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao leveraged early 3D modeling tools such as CATIA and titanium cladding to achieve its complex forms.
- The museum helped revive Bilbao and sparked a widely copied "Bilbao effect" that tied iconic cultural buildings to tourism and redevelopment.
- Current reassessments weigh the upsides and excesses of the starchitect era it accelerated, citing uneven megaprojects like Seattle’s Experience Music Project and The Grand in Los Angeles.
- Writers also spotlight his quieter adaptive reuse in Los Angeles—such as MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary, Gemini G.E.L., his Santa Monica house, and the 2021 Beckmen YOLA Center—while noting unfinished work including the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi slated for next year.