Architect/artist.

Architect/Artist

Looking Carefully

The architect is an artist whose art is all-encompassing. It is not only viewed, but lived in, played in, worked in and worshipped in. Architectural structures reflect, as well as shape, the culture of our time.

Many early structures such as temples, tombs and monuments were meant to be permanent and were built with long-lasting materials. Early architecture was quite simple and functional. Later inventions, such as the arch, vault and cantilever, led to more complex designs. New materials and new architectural needs were developed during the Industrial Revolution, and architects addressed expanding opportunities and horizons.

Architecture is moving in many different directions and Frank Gehry is one of the most creative and innovative architects working today. Sometimes perceived as an artist, Gehry insists that he is an architect, but that his work "questions the traditional boundaries between art and architecture." Gehry's unconventional work is, among other things, very sculptural, and like a sculptor he is concerned with volume and the arrangement of shapes and basic forms.

Gehry designed the Winton Residence Guest House (shown overleaf) to reflect his clients' interests in contemporary art and to preserve the natural landscape of their heavily wooded lakefront property. According to the project description, "what slowly evolved...may be construed as a large, outdoor sculpture." From the outside, the building is composed of large, distinct shapes. Inside, there is a sense of openness provided by wide views of the surroundings. "Clustering around a tall central living/dining space are a long box shape containing service and kitchen functions, a brick fireplace alcove and two contrasting forms, each containing a bedroom and bath."

Looking critically at the Winton Residence Guest House, describe the basic shapes that you see. How have these basic shapes been modified to create new shapes? How might they look if viewed from another angle? What interior spaces might these shapes provide?

Gehry's designs are also identified by his extraordinary use of building materials, such as concrete block, sheet metal and chain-link fencing, to create unusual exteriors. "One bedroom of the guest house is curved and surfaced in local kasota stone. The other bedroom has a shed roof. This bedroom, and the living room form, are sheathed with painted metal panels. The service wing is covered with finnply, a prefinished plywood. Above it is a sleeping loft of galvanized metal."(*) What colors and textures are created by the combination of these materials?

This "outdoor sculpture" was designed for the Winton's children and grandchildren, and has places to hide and crawl into. From a distance, the Guest House may look more like a sculpture than a building. "It is hoped that this building will have a certain amount of humor and mystery and fantasy, so that visiting children will remember their trip to grandma's house."

Comparing

Frank Gehry's work, like the work of any artist, serves as a means of personal expression. His work reflects his life and times with many forces shaping it -- his awareness of his ancestral history, the influence of family and friends, his life-long obsession with texture and materials, his immersion in the art world and his close identity with painters and sculptors. In the 1960s, Frank Gehry began to look closely at the work of Minimal artists. The sparse, intellectual style of Minimalism, and the artworks created by sculptors such a Carl Andre, Richard Serra and Gordon Matta-Clark were important factors in the development of Gehry's expressive language of forms and symbols.

Minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, with his emphasis on the primary shapes -- pyramids, cubes and other geometric volumes -- and his use of unusual materials, was a major influence on the development of Gehry's architecture. In his Fifth Copper Corner, Andre has dealt with a construction of geometric shapes made from copper plates. Andre hopes that his work will affect one's perception of the squares as well as invite the visitor to explore along, around, and at times, on top of his construction. What similarities do you see between Gehry's architecture and the Minimalist sculpture of Carl Andre?

Key Concepts

* Architecture, like art, can be a means of personal

expression. * Architects use the same visual vocabulary as

artists. * Childhood experiences can often influence one's

professional career. * Ordinary materials can have innovative and

creative applications. * Minimal art is an extreme form of abstraction

where results do not represent any object or

emotion, either from the artist or the viewer.

Frank O. Gehry

Frank Goldberg was born in Toronto, Canada, on February 28, 1929. When he was in his twenties, he changed his surname to Gehry. His mother and maternal grandparents had the greatest impact on his early development and his fascination with "the nature of materials." Between the ages of 10 and 17, Gehry worked in his grandfather's hardware store, stocking shelves with nails, bolts, hammers, saws, chain, fencing, roofing, paint and glass. The wood scraps and shavings from the saw and lathe would be taken home, where Gehry and his grandmother used these raw materials to construct futuristic cities. These childhood experiences helped develop his lifelong interest in textures and materials, and with design and construction.

Gehry's formal career in architecture and design began at the University of Southern California, where he was admitted to the School of Architecture upon the recommendation of his ceramics professor who recognized his design talents. He graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from USC and later completed Graduate Study in City Planning at Harvard University.

Gehry established his own architectural firm in 1962. He has received national and international recognition for his award-winning designs. His work has been featured in international and national publications, journals and magazines. His drawings, models and furniture have been exhibited in museums around the world. His work was the subject of a major traveling exhibition, The Architecture of Frank Gehry, organized by the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis in 1986. Gehry has been the recipient of professorships at Harvard and Yale Universities and has developed an experimental course teaching city planning to grade school children at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

Suggested Activities

Elementary

* Gehry acquired his lifelong fascination with

"the nature of materials" from his experiences

as a boy working in his grandfather's hardware

store. Depending on class size, plan a field trip

to a local hardware store. Distribute a check list

of items for the students to become familiar

with, such as nuts, bolts, nails, wood bits, sheet

metal, screening, tools, etc. Purchase a variety

of these items or arrange to have them donated.

Have the students design a small scale, three-dimensional

sculpture, incorporating these

hardware materials into its construction and

exterior finishes.

* Have students identify the many lines, shapes,

colors and textures they see about them in the

classroom. Can they find these same

"elements" outside in the natural world? Explain

that the elements they have described make up

our visual world, and are a part of the architect's

visual vocabulary. Have the students explore

their school or other building to identify and

catalogue the many visual elements they see.

This activity can be expanded to include

interior spaces. Students can focus on the element of

texture and do texture rubbings of interesting

surfaces and make a collage of their rubbings.

* Scale and dimension are important elements

that an architect must consider. To better

understand scale and dimension, have the

students complete the following exercises: 1) Have

the students measure the classroom's

dimensions using a student as the unit of measure,

rather than inches, feet or yards. Have the

students compute the average size of the students

in their classroom. This will then become the

standard unit of measure. For example, the

classroom size may be 3 students high by 8

students long, etc. 2) Have the students measure

the classroom using more traditional units of

measure. Begin the measurements in feet and

have the students convert them to inches,

yards, meters, miles, etc. Further, students can

convert the dimensions to an architect's scale,

such as 1/8" = 1'.

Secondary

* Have the students discuss the following basic

processes of the architect. How does the

architect begin? The architect begins with an idea.

How are these ideas communicated? Ideas are

communicated through a variety of sketches,

architectural drawings and renderings. Ideas

are further communicated in three-dimensional

scale models. Invite an architect to visit the

classroom to discuss these processes and

display examples. Assign the students to become

architects. Project themes might include

designing a school, a fast-food restaurant, a

museum, etc. Have students sketch their ideas and

translate their sketches into drawings. Finally,

have them build a cardboard scale model of

their design.

* City planning is an important government

function in all major metropolitan

communities. Discuss with the students the effects of

city planning as it pertains to economic

growth, patterns of transportation, urban and

suburban developments, etc. Select a section of

the city for a field trip mapping tour. Have the

students study maps of the area from twenty

and fifty years ago. The mapping activity

should include locating old and new buildings,

commercial and industrial buildings,

hospitals, residential housing, and other points of

interest or historical importance. Have the

students project what they think the area will look

like twenty and fifty years from now.

PHOTO : Carl Andre, Fifth Copper Corner, 1976. Fifteen copper plates. Gift of the National

PHOTO : Endowment for the Arts and Philip Rhodes Collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta,

PHOTO : Georgia.

PHOTO : Winton Residence Guest House, Wayzata, Minneapolis.

(*)Cited from the Winton Residence Guest House Project Description, Frank O. Gehry & Assoc., Inc.

Pamela Bray is a museum art educator who recently served as Curator of Education, Student Programs, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA.