At the age of 96, the icon of contemporary design passed away from respiratory illness on December 5, 2025, in California. From the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Picasso of architecture and winner of the Pritzker Prize (1989) revolutionized this urban art form with his bold, sculptural, and deconstructed buildings. Here are five dates that mark his impressive career.
“His work, sometimes controversial but always captivating, has been described as iconoclastic, turbulent, and ephemeral, but in awarding him this prize, the jury salutes that restless spirit that has made his buildings a unique expression of contemporary life…” This is how an independent jury presented him with the Pritzker Prize in 1989 in Nara, Japan. Created in 1979, this “Nobel Prize of architecture” honors each year living architects whose achievements demonstrate their talent, vision, and commitment.
Born in 1929 in Toronto, Canada, to a Jewish family of Polish origin, the young Frank Owen Goldberg, as he was formerly known, spent a lot of time in his grandfather’s hardware store, where he handled and experimented with all kinds of materials. After moving to California, the budding artist studied architecture at the University of Southern California, before attending the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From his first residences and projects in the 1960s, his style was already breaking with the architectural traditions of the time. He asserted his preference for form and movement over symmetry or pure functionalism, and turned to inexpensive and ordinary materials.
1978
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While Frank Gehry’s work focused on private homes and low-profile projects, 1978 marked an international turning point in the artist’s career. The architect, then 49 years old, renovated his own home in Santa Monica, California, using unconventional materials such as corrugated metal, reclaimed wood, and wire mesh. Going against the grain of classical symmetry, his work is deconstructed and stands as a manifesto of his style. A veritable inhabited sculpture that could have come straight out of a movie, it did not fail to attract the attention of the artistic world, which praised his unique vision of space and movement.
1993
Bolstered by his newfound fame, Frank Gehry, 64, went on to complete a series of high-end residential projects and small public commissions in the 1980s. More precise and refined in his style, he was entrusted with the design of the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, USA, his largest project at the time. In 1993, the building was unveiled to the general public and stood out for its asymmetrical facades, fragmented volumes, and sculptural lines, playing on steel, brick, and glass. At that point, he confirmed his ability to transform institutional architecture into a major work of art.
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