Lifetime Achievement

Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry is known for making astonishing buildings, but his achievement is much greater: he has single-handedly made design a public event. Cities clamor for his buildings, and people make pilgrimages to their doorsteps. In 1962, he formed Frank O. Gehry & Associates in Santa Monica, California, and in 1978 he gained widespread public attention for the reinvention of a humble bungalow for his family. His titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, in Balboa, Spain (1997) has transformed the museum and the city. Other projects include Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, a computer science center at MIT, and Vitra Design Museum in Germany. Since winning the Lifetime Achievement Award, he has taken on increasingly complex projects, including designs for a proposed Guggenheim Museum in New York City and a new wing at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.