Frank Gehry Quotes
Born: February 28, 1929
Frank Gehry, the visionary architect behind some of the world’s most iconic structures, proves that true innovation requires the courage to break every rule. His philosophy rejects the safety of conventional design, championing instead the messy, thrilling process of creation. Gehry teaches that action precedes perfection; his crumpled sketches and titanium-clad masterpieces are testaments to the power of starting before you feel ready. For those paralyzed by the fear of failure, his quotes are a rallying cry to embrace chaos, trust your instincts, and build something that has never existed before.
Frank Gehry Quotes (56)
"Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness."
— Frank Gehry"If I knew where I was going, I wouldn't do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don't do it."
— Frank Gehry"There is stuff I would have liked to have done. But there are no sour grapes."
— Frank Gehry"I was in Peru and visited a building near Lima built by the Incas. It was low in height, with no windows at all, but all the way in the back there was air movement. And I couldn't figure out how they'd done it; it was incredible."
— Frank Gehry"Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It's about making the world a better place, and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it."
— Frank Gehry"A lot of people don't get it, but I design from the inside out so that the finished product looks inevitable somehow. I think it's important to create spaces that people like to be in, that are humanistic."
— Frank Gehry"It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone."
— Frank Gehry"Chicago's one of the rare places where architecture is more visible."
— Frank Gehry"The best advice I've received is to be yourself. The best artists do that."
— Frank Gehry"For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn't do it."
— Frank Gehry"There are a lot of questions about whether architecture is art. The people who ask that think pretty tract houses are architecture. But that doesn't hold up."
— Frank Gehry"You've got to bumble forward into the unknown."
— Frank Gehry"Liquid architecture. It's like jazz - you improvise, you work together, you play off each other, you make something, they make something. And I think it's a way of - for me, it's a way of trying to understand the city, and what might happen in the city."
— Frank Gehry"On certain projects, on big public projects, people definitely are interested in making them greener, but on smaller projects with tight budgets it can be harder."
— Frank Gehry"One of my greatest influences is the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini."
— Frank Gehry"I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don't get a lot of work sometimes."
— Frank Gehry"I never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building - I'm not."
— Frank Gehry"Green issues have been used as a marketing tool. Sometimes these green claims are completely meaningless."
— Frank Gehry"The game is if the orchestra can hear each other, they play better. If they play better and there's a tangible feeling between the orchestra and the audience, if they feel each other, the audience responds and the orchestra feels it."
— Frank Gehry"And I realized, when I'd come in to the meetings with these corrugated metal and chain link stuff, and people would just look at me like I'd just landed from Mars. But I couldn't do anything else. That was my response to the people and the time."
— Frank Gehry"I have always thought that L.A. is a motor city that developed linear downtowns."
— Frank Gehry"There is a backlash against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling."
— Frank Gehry"I don't know how to overcome this perception that I'm extravagant."
— Frank Gehry"Most of our cities built since the war are bland. They're modernist, they're cold, and now architects want to go back to that."
— Frank Gehry"My buildings are all on budget."
— Frank Gehry"I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope."
— Frank Gehry"I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did, and I get the sweats, I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going."
— Frank Gehry"You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature."
— Frank Gehry"When I went to Harvard and studied planning, I found I didn't have the skills or the strength to become the kind of public person who could go out and lobby government agencies."
— Frank Gehry"An architect is given a program, budget, place, and schedule. Sometimes the end product rises to art - or at least people call it that."
— Frank Gehry