A Response to the film: Sketches of Frank Gehry

Watch the trailer for the film here:


I have seen a number of photographs and video glimpses of Frank Gehry’s architecture since I was a child. There was this period in the nineties that thrived on a style that was bold, not just in shape but also in color, futuristic, and a bit cartoon-like. I think a look at Pee-Wee’s playhouse sort of sums it up, but nevertheless, it had the same kind of animated quality and eye-puzzling slant, as do many Gehry’s earlier structure’s. I remember seeing some of Gehry’s work and thinking “that’s the future.” I took his work for granted, thinking that dozens of different architects were taking their creativity to this new level. Seeing the film Sketches of Frank Gehry resulted in, for me, an surprising discovery.

In the Fall of 2004, I visited the MOMA when it was temporarily being housed in Queens, New York. There, an architecture exhibit was in place, which had models of existing buildings and project buildings. I brought the brochure home, framed it, and hung it up so that my friends could also look at the designs and contemplate which of the projects they would choose. The fifth design on the brochure was no more than an erratic elongated scribble intended for the New York Times headquarters, a project sketch from 2000. No one that visited my home and looked at this sketch really understood it. It was incomprehensible, and it seemed laughable that it held considerable rank among the other more fully realized structures. After watching Sketches of Frank Gehry, I dug the framed brochure out of my closet, and realized the scribble was Gehry’s. The project structure on the brochure never made it to construction, but the film shed new light on the creative vision that is uniquely Gehry’s.

The Sketches of Frank Gehry documentary provides needed insight on how his unique scribbles get off paper and into the real world. The film, directed by the late Sydney Pollack, who confessed that he had little knowledge of architecture, successfully manages the perplexity of Gehry, asking the right questions, encouraging Gehry’s autobiographical dialogue and observing him in his chaotic thinking process, that which is emulated in his characteristic sketch. There’s also the element of celebrity and millionaire endorsement, which explains Gehry’s ability to task the unconventional, and it seems he is sought after for that very reason. What corporate project for a civic building wouldn’t want the draw of being one of Gehry’s infamous structures? The impact of his imagination realized, especially at this magnitude (esp. for the Guggenheim, Bilboa, Spain), lifts the basic platform of functional space design to a level that boasts creativity and purpose.

I’d like to own this film. I think it is somewhat over indulgent because it shows celebrities giving testimony saying they “had to have” one of his housing structures. Other than that, I still feel like his architectural achievement is definitely something to celebrate.