Posted by Beverly Felix
Posted on
-
I found out about Frank Gehry in the early 1980s. A friend showed me his house. On a sunny Saturday afternoon in California, we drove to Santa Monica with the top down.
When we arrived at our destination, my friend slowed the car down to a snail's pace so we wouldn't miss one second of the house. As we drove by in slo-mo, we leaned forward and stared at every inch of it. We turned around and did the same thing. Two more times.
I was astounded at what I saw and unsure of how I felt. The house was radically different.
In the late 1970s, the Gehrys bought a small bungalow that was built around 1920. They remodeled it to expand the kitchen-dining area and put in skylights to bring natural light into the space.
It was the way in which Gehry did the remodeling that caused a big stir. The nonconformist architect made a bold departure from traditional residential design, and used raw industrial materials such as corrugated sheet metal, unpainted plywood, and chain-link.
Gehry built a new house around the old house and used nontraditional materials that weren't aesthetically pleasing. He utilized corrugated sheet metal for the facade and sides of the house, installed angled windows a la Cubist style, and placed a chain-link fence on the second floor of a later remodeling.
The materials and the Cubistic influence produced a radical and unconventional look. Criticism and controversy ensued with his neighbors and other people.
For Gehry it wasn't about aesthetics. It was about bringing nontraditional materials together and utilizing them in a precise manner. It was about creating a new approach to residential design.
Because the house was Gehry's personal residence, we weren't able to see the inside. According to books and research, the interior also went through a transformation.
Although Gehry retained most of the original house, he gutted the interior. In some places he stripped the walls down to wood studs and joists. Furthermore, he exposed electrical wiring, light bulbs, and the asphalt floor.
Certain elements from the old house were kept and incorporated into the new design. One of those elements was the old doors. They can be seen alongside the new doors, creating a mixture of the old and the new.
The Gehrys
did more remodeling, adding a second floor for their boys. They also put in the chain-link fence on the upstairs deck, a lap pool, and converted the garage into a guest house. The look of the house, inside and out, changed again.
About thirty-four years later, Architect Frank Gehry received the 2012 AIA Twenty-five Year Award for original design of his Santa Monica house and for establishing a new residential design language.
That's not all. Gehry built a new house and this one is huge and shiny. But that's for another post.
Works Cited:
Friedman, Mildred. Frank Gehry: The House. New York: Rizzoli International
Publications, Inc., 2009.
Hoyt, Alex. "The Tijuana Sausage Factory." 17 May 2012. Architect. 3 Feb.
2015 <http://www.architecturemagazine.com/architects/the-tijuana-
sausage-factory.aspx>.
Morticde, Zach. "Gehry Residence." The American Institute of Architects. 28
Jan. 2015 <http://www.aia.org/practicing/awards/2012/twenty-five-year-
award/>.
Perez, Adelyn. "Gehry Residence." Arch Daily. 28 Jan. 2015
http://www.archdaily.com/67321/gehry-residence-frank-gehry/>.
[...]
Continue
