Overview
- His death on December 5 at his Santa Monica home was confirmed by Meaghan Lloyd of Gehry’s office to the German press agency dpa.
- He rose from a Toronto childhood as the son of Polish Jewish immigrants to study architecture at USC and open his Los Angeles firm in 1962.
- Signature works span the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the Neue Zollhof in Düsseldorf, and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.
- Honors included the 1989 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- Renowned for sculptural forms and hands-on model making, he drew both praise for originality and criticism over cost and spectacle, and he remained active on designs into advanced age.