Urban Research: The House that Shaped an Architectural Generation: Frank Gehry’s First ‘Deconstructivist’ Building

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The House that Shaped an Architectural Generation: Frank Gehry’s First ‘Deconstructivist’ Building

What happened to Frank Gehry? Some call it a midlife crises, others chalk it up to a moment of revelation. Whatever occurred, this rather conventional middle-aged architect changed virtually overnight into an avante garde designer and created what is arguably the most influential residence of the 20th Century. Deconstructivism now pervades the field of architecture and has influenced virtually every contemporary all-star architect in the world. Gehry is perhaps best known for his curvy, metalic wave-form museums in Bilbao, Seattle, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, but it all started with strange impulses applied to his own traditional little Santa Monica house in the late 1970s.

Frank Gehry’s house in Santa Monica came before its time as a harbinger of the Deconstructivist movement. The first recognizedpublic Deconconstructivist architectural project came almost a decade later. Gehry took his seemingly ordinary house in Santa Monica and began changing things incredibly strange ways. He took a step beyond the playful reworkings of Postmodern architecture, where traditional design symbols were reinterpreted, and instead starting using materials and strategies few applied to architectural projects.