Frank Gehry Interview (page: 6 / 6) Award-Winning Architect	Print Interview

There's a sort of stereotype image of the architect as an autocratic egomaniac that we see in movies and in novels like The Fountainhead. You seem like the antithesis of that.

Frank Gehry: Yeah.

In the real world, what personal characteristics do you think a person needs to be an architect?

Frank Gehry: Well, I think there are all kinds of architects. So one of the problems is the schools supposedly create architects like me. That's the whole thrust, and not many people can do it. I think the educational thing has to change a bit, so that you allow different kinds of architects to evolve, because when you get in practice, you need all these different skills. It's not something you can do yourself. I think that having an open mind about collaboration with people is important. If you are the Lone Ranger, it's a little bit harder, I think. I think that the iconoclast that you suggest, The Fountainhead, is hard to exist in the context of our politics now, in our world. There are a few people that try it and get away with it, but the people that do it, I don't see them producing what the guys who used to do it did. So it's a pose. It's not real.

You have to be a collaborator, don't you?

Frank Gehry: I think you do.

I think you have to be a collaborator on lots of levels. You have to be willing to be a leader in the collaboration. You have to be able to work with the clients and inspire them to more than they -- I mean, usually when they come to me, they are ready. They want to do something special. Even the Disney Hall thing, they carved out a real free path for me. Even today with all the troubles, they're not really hitting at the design as the flaw. I'm 66, so you get to a point where you get some powers and some credibility -- it took a long time -- with certain people. It's not with everybody. The U.S. Government won't hire me. They laugh.
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It sounds like patience is important too.

Frank Gehry: Patience, yeah. But hanging on, being relentless, just never giving up, I guess that's patience, and having a vision. You've got to know where you want to go with it, and how to explain it.

I used to think that the explanation robbed the essence out of the thing. It was sort of, "I didn't want to take this." There is a feeling of that in the art world or in architecture, but I discovered that the more I could explain myself, the better it was in terms of the relationship with the other people, and that even when I became very intuitive and I didn't know exactly where I was going, I could analyze it for somebody and tell them what I thought I was doing and where I thought I was doing it and how it fit into the history of my work. So I think in my case, I find the clients very important to the equation.
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Can you tell us a little bit about what students should be thinking about, if they're interested in going into architecture. Should they be doing a lot of math courses?

Frank Gehry: I think there are a lot of ways to be an architect, and math is certainly an important part of it. But there are a lot of different areas in architecture, and the schools have a tendency to develop a certain kind architect -- trying to make the stars. But all of us need a lot of help from a lot of different kinds of people. First of all, you have to love architecture. If you love it more than anything and you want to be part of it, then you find your particular niche or your way of dealing with it. It may not be the same way I deal with it, it may be working with research in planning and housing. It may develop into materials research. It may be in graphics as it applies to architecture. It may be in the presentation of architecture. There are so many parts I can enumerate, but I think it's a broader field.

I suppose you can't be thinking about being an artist and also thinking maybe you'd like to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or something as well. You've got to be committed.

Frank Gehry: A nine-year-old kid came to my office the other day. He was doing a paper for his class on architecture. And he said, "How do you know when you want to be something, like an architect? How will I know?" And I said, "What's your favorite thing?" This just popped out of me. "What is your favorite thing that you do?" And he said, "I love the sleepovers at my house when I can stay up late with my friends." And I said, "Okay. When you love architecture more than that, then you'll know it's the right thing."
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You make it all sound pretty daunting.

Frank Gehry: It's an awesome thing to come out and look for a way to make a living, and to get into the world. It looks awesome, and it's huge, and some of us do things now that make us look so smart, like we've conquered it. But it just takes baby steps. You start a little bit at a time, and it grows, and you can do it. We're just normal human beings, and we did it, so you can do it.

You came to this country from Canada, and I wondered what kind of image you get when you think of the American Dream.

Frank Gehry: It's the same as the Canadian Dream, I think. The American Dream is about freedom, free expression, melting pot, ideas, exchange of ideas. That's my American Dream. It's very naive, I think, but I hang onto it. I'm scared of the guns and stuff that's going on.

But is there still a possibility of that dream?

Frank Gehry: Well, if you look at my career, I'm realizing an American Dream. I'm having a great time. I'm certainly appreciated by enough people to make it worthwhile. I feel good, and I'm getting to act out a certain game or whatever you want to call it, and I think it is contributing something to the world. How important it is, I don't know. I don't have any illusions or visions of grandeur about it.

And you call yourself an architect!

Frank Gehry: Yeah!

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