Design & Style, Arts & Entertainment

Introduction

Frank Gehry

Lesson time 06:08 min

Frank welcomes you to his MasterClass. He shares what he hopes you'll learn from him, and tells you exactly how he found architecture. Or did it find him?

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Frank's Beginnings • Covered Topics

Preview

There is a moment of truth where the artist faces the white canvas. And you make the first move. And all of a sudden you reveal yourself. I hope to discuss basic principles that I operate on, how I see working as an architect today and some of the pitfalls, some of the issues that I'm confronted with, some of my fears about what's happening in the future. I guess we're always afraid of the future. Overall, sharing the way I play the game, what I'm interested in. It's not about trying to be like me. It's trying to be like being about themselves and finding their own way that I hope I'm promoting. I don't think you should become Frank Gehry. Little Frank Gehry's or big Frank Gehry's or even medium Frank Gehry's. By showing you how I'm doing it and to think the thoughts that are in my mind as I'm working and the things that are important to me in the processes and how I interact with clients and world around me gives you an idea of how an architect today has been working. I'm Frank Gehry and this is my MasterClass. [PIANO MUSIC] Architecture, it chose me more than I chose it. When I was in high school in Canada and they had vocational guidance books in the library of what different professions. I remember going to the library and studying all of them. And I picked architecture out. Because why, I don't know. And the University of Toronto class in architecture, they were very proud that one of the projects was to design a little cottage, you know, like a little stone cottage with a fireplace. And I just closed the book and put it away. I wasn't interested in that. My cousin was a chemical engineer. And in my whole family, he was somebody I looked up to. Because he was a chemical engineer and they talked about him, this big chemical engineer. I thought, well, I did good in chemistry. So maybe I'd do that. I signed up for vocational guidance and chemical engineering. And I was the only one in the class that signed up for it. So the scientist, or the chemical engineer, came, picked me up, took me out to his lab. And he was making paints for General Motors, I think. And they had a bunch of beakers and Bunsen burners and all kinds of stuff. It looked pretty exciting. And he let me stay there for a couple hours. And they were doing a thing called titrations. So they do a test on something, very small variations, like tiny, tiny variations. And while I was there, they did a hundred of them. Variations like dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk and they were testing all these things. And I looked at the guy, and I said, get me out of here. So I knew I wasn't going to do that. I didn't have the patience for that. Family was poor. I was a truck driver. I went to night school. And I took a class in ceramics and the ceramics teacher who was pretty well known at the time, Glen Lukens, took me aside one day and said, this ain't for you. But I think arc...

About the Instructor

At 19 years old, Frank Gehry was a truck driver taking sculpture classes at night school. His vision for what architecture could accomplish went on to reshape our cities’ skylines and the imaginations of artists and designers around the world. In his online architecture class, this master builder invites you into his never-before-seen model archive for a look into his creative process.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

Frank Gehry

In 17 lessons, Frank teaches his unconventional philosophy on architecture, design, and art.

Explore the Class
Sign Up