Legendary architect Frank Gehry dies at 96, leaving transformative legacy in global architecture

 

Frank Gehry, the Canadian-American architect celebrated for redefining modern architecture, passed away on December 5, 2025, at his home in Santa Monica, California. His death, confirmed by Meaghan Lloyd, his firm’s chief of staff, came after a brief respiratory illness.

Born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Gehry moved to Los Angeles in the late 1940s and eventually earned his degree from the University of Southern California (USC) School of Architecture. Over the course of more than six decades, he rose from modest beginnings—working on housing projects and shopping malls—to become arguably the most influential architect of his generation.

Gehry’s signature style, often described as sculptural, deconstructivist, and boldly experimental, challenged the conventions of modernist architecture. He frequently employed unconventional materials such as titanium and stainless steel, using sweeping, organic forms to create buildings that blur the line between engineering and art.

Perhaps his most famous and defining work is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, completed in 1997. Clad in undulating titanium panels and combining stone, glass, and metal in bold, unexpected forms, the museum was immediately hailed as a masterpiece — a “fantastic dream-ship” whose gleaming surfaces could evoke fish scales when hit by light. The building’s dramatic impact on Bilbao’s cultural and economic revival was so profound that “the Bilbao effect” became shorthand for how innovative architecture could transform a city’s identity.

Gehry’s influence did not stop at Bilbao. Among his other celebrated works are the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, opened in 2003, renowned for its gleaming stainless-steel curves and sweeping interior spaces; and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, a shimmering museum completed in 2014 that further cemented his global reputation.

Beyond individual buildings, Gehry’s career shaped how architects and cities think about design — encouraging risk-taking, technological experimentation, and a willingness to treat architecture as a form of expressive art. Many peers and critics have described him as “arguably the most acclaimed American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright.”

In the wake of his passing, tributes have poured in from across the global design community, with architects, cultural institutions, and civic leaders acknowledging the profound void left by his death.

As the world mourns the loss of one of its most inventive architectural minds, Gehry’s buildings continue to stand — monuments to a vision that forever expanded what buildings can be: not merely containers for human activity, but statements of aspiration, creativity, and the expressive potential of space.