Frank Gehry, the most influential architect of the past six decades, passed away on Thursday, December 5, 2025, at the age of 96 in his Santa Monica home. The cause was a brief respiratory illness. With his death, the world of architecture has lost one of its most creative and rebellious minds—a visionary who transformed buildings from “soulless boxes” into “living sculptures.”
He was born in Toronto in 1929 and established his practice in Los Angeles in 1962. The project that left the world stunned was the 1978 renovation of his own Santa Monica residence: he wrapped an ordinary house in corrugated metal, plywood, and chain-link fencing, effectively declaring, “I don’t work by the old rules.” That house remains the defining symbol of the Deconstructivist movement.
But the magical moment of his career came in 1997 with the opening of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Those shimmering, undulating titanium volumes beside the river transformed a dying industrial city into one of the world’s top tourist destinations. Everyone called the phenomenon the “Bilbao Effect,” and Philip Johnson declared: “It is the greatest building of our time.”
In the following years, Gehry continued to create relentlessly: the Dancing House in Prague, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Luma Arles in France, and the ongoing Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. He also played a key role in developing the CATIA software—an indispensable tool today for designing complex forms that would otherwise be nearly impossible.
Frank Gehry is survived by his wife Berta, his sons Alejandro and Sam, his daughter Brina, and his sister Doreen. The world has lost a fearless genius, but the buildings he created will forever breathe and tell the story of a rebellious dreamer to generations yet to come.