When people condemn me for designing iconic buildings in cities and not having an idea what a city is, they haven't done their homework. I started in urban design and city planning. It's just that when I got out of school there wasn't much of a market for that. There still isn't.

Frank Gehry

Categorized in : School Ideas Cities

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

Frank Gehry

bad-ass badass talking

Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert.

Frank Gehry

design expression experts

Architecture

Frank Gehry

beautiful drama believe

People ask me if I'm an artist or an architect. But I think they're the same.

Frank Gehry

artist people thinking

Creativity is about play and a kind of willingness to go with your intuition. It's crucial to an artist. If you know where you are going and what you are going to do, why do it? I think I learned that from the artists, from my grandmother, from all the creative people I've spent time with over the years.

Frank Gehry

grandmother creativity fun

I don't know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.

Frank Gehry

bad-ass badass people

Your best work is your expression of yourself.

Frank Gehry

best-work expression

I think the biggest problem with 'industrial' architecture is that it's lost its sense of humanity. Minimalist stuff drains all the humanity out of it. That idea works great for the money thing, but it doesn't work great for the feeling thing.

Frank Gehry

humanity feelings thinking

If you know where it's going, it's not worth doing.

Frank Gehry

ifs knows

In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures.

Frank Gehry

character civilization history

You can look anywhere and find inspiration.

Frank Gehry

inspiration looks

That's what you have to find in architecture. You have to find your signature. When you find it, you're the only expert on it. People can say they like it or don't like it. They can argue about it, but it's yours.

Frank Gehry

signatures experts people

If you're serious about being an architect, you've got to learn how to take responsibility. It's not fluff. You have to do every detail on every bloody piece of the building. You have to know how the engineering works. You have to know how the fittings go together. You have to master the mechanical, electrical, acoustical - everything.

Frank Gehry

serious responsibility together

Not every person has the same kinds of talents, so you discover what yours are and work with them.

Frank Gehry

talent kind persons

Ninety percent of the buildings we live in and around aren't architecture. No, that's not right - 98 percent.

Frank Gehry

ninety building architecture

We don't see the banality, but we accept banality. We accept it as inevitable, and it's not.

Frank Gehry

banality inevitable accepting

Take what comes your way. Do the best with it. Be responsible as you can and something good will happen.

Frank Gehry

responsible responsibility way

I found the material that people hated the most and used the most. So, I was going and try and see if I could play with it sculpturally.

Frank Gehry

play trying people

I know I draw without taking my pen off the page. I just keep going, and that my drawings I think of them as scribbles. I don't think they mean anything to anybody except to me, and then at the end of the day, the end of the project, they wheel out these little drawings and they're damn close to what the finished building is and it's the drawing.

Frank Gehry

drawing mean thinking

You have to be optimistic. I still have doubts and conflicts, but the bottom line is, I believe in the future.

Frank Gehry

optimistic doubt believe