At the time of architect Frank Gehry’s passing on 5 December 2025, aged 96, the Canadian American’s works included buildings of varying scale and typology—from multi-level offices to pavilions and residential houses to public works. Gehry also created furniture pieces for Knoll, accessories for Tiffany & Co, and a showroom for Louis Vuitton.

Gehry’s own house in Santa Monica, a break-through assemblage over an existing bungalow, is an example of adaptive re-use back in 1978. Gehry retained the original Dutch Colonial house adding new volumes around three sides using materials like plywood, corrugated metal, glass, and chain-link fencing, leaving structural elements exposed and challenging conventional residential forms. Early works such as this as well as his 1960s cardboard chair designs focused on found recycled materials—relevant to today and what we should build.

Gehry visited Sydney in 1979 to present a lecture for what is now the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Among the architects and students that met with Gehry a few years later in 1982 in Melbourne, Toby Reed Director of Nervegna Reed Architecture recalls that Gehry was “self-assured, not a mega-star. We sat around and looked at the Australian backyard. Mary Ruth, an architect and collector received sketches and recalled Gehry’s obsession—urban schemes with fish and then commissioned one”. Reed notes that this is “interesting in retrospect, this little Gehry in Melbourne”.

The fish was a pavilion in Melbourne that could have happened. Gehry’s sculptural fish was later realised on a beach in Barcelona in 1992 and earlier in a series of lamps first created in 1983 along with a second generation of fish lamps in 2013. Both were shown at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, followed by similar exhibitions in 2014 in Paris, London and Hong Kong.

Above: The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, United States. Architect: Gehry Partners. Photo: Mark Tenn.

Forward of Gehry’s later works which are characterised by digital modelling, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein Germany—opening in 1989—composed of interlacing curved forms. Reed indicates that “the digital technologies that Gehry founded in order to make his buildings real have affected our buildings more than we know. There was some input from Australians there, but I don’t know the details”. The programs that are now used, including Building Information Modelling (BIM) stem from this digital phase.

By adapting custom software, Gehry was able to model and construct complex fluid forms. This approach effectively anticipated BIM by digitally linking design, engineering, and construction, allowing for the precise factory-level production of custom-building components. Formalised through Gehry Technologies, integrated teams, iterative digital workflows and data-rich models to manage complexity, enabled commissions including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, developed at the same time in 1997.

Gehry also worked within sensitive heritage contexts. The DZ Bank building in Berlin on Pariser Platz near the historic Brandenburg Gate was completed in 2001—opposite to most Gehry buildings with restrained facade but with interior atrium and sculptural conference space typical of Gehry’s expressive form.

Above: Dr Chau Chak Wing Building in Sydney, Australia. Design Architect: Gehry Partners. Executive Architect: DJRD. Photos: Andrew Worrsam.

The Dr Chau Chak Wing building at UTS completed in 2015—designed in collaboration with executive architects DJRD—is Gehry’s only Australian built work. With an east-facing exterior of undulating brick looking to the area’s sandstone heritage and a contemporary western facade of angular glass, the design integrates complex digital modelling and construction. UTS Emeritus Professor Roy Green commented that Gehry’s “unique approach was to start, not with external appearances, but to ‘design from the inside out’ in dialogue with the users about the functionality of the internal spaces. He asked the faculty: How do you want to work with each other, with students and the community?”

Influencing culture worldwide, Gehry’s architectural legacy is well-established. Gehry also leaves a personal and professional legacy. The impression on those who met and worked with him, including Reed who visited him again at his Los Angeles studio just before Bilbao, was that “he was a really nice man”.

Main image: Frank Gehry at the opening of the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building in Sydney. Photo: Peter Morris.

Emma Adams

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