Overview
- Gehry died on December 5 at his Santa Monica home at age 96, prompting tributes from cultural leaders and institutions from the Guggenheim to LVMH and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
- His Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) became a career-defining icon credited with catalyzing the city's revival and popularizing the decades-long 'Bilbao effect,' though results elsewhere varied.
- Gehry helped mainstream advanced 3D modeling and early BIM practices using tools like CATIA, later spinning out Gehry Technologies, whose platform was acquired by Trimble and influenced Autodesk workflows.
- Beyond sculptural megaprojects such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and Fondation Louis Vuitton, he left a quieter legacy of adaptive reuse, including MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary and the Beckmen YOLA Center.
- He was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1989 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and his portfolio included ongoing work such as the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which reporting says is slated to open next year.