Frank O. Gehry Hon RA (b. 1929)

Raised in Toronto, Canada, Frank Gehry moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. Gehry received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954, and he studied City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

In subsequent years, Gehry has built an architectural career that has spanned over five decades and produced public and private buildings in America, Europe and Asia. Hallmarks of Gehry’s work include a particular concern that people exist comfortably within the spaces that he creates, and an insistence that his buildings address the context and culture of their sites and the budgets of his clients.

His work has earned Gehry several of the most significant awards in the architectural field. In 1994, he was bestowed with the title of Academician by the National Academy of Design. In 1998, he was named an Honorary Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2003, Gehry was inducted into the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and he was designated as a Companion to the Order of Canada. In 2014 Gehry was elevated to the rank of Commandeur of the Ordre National de la Legion d’honneur from the French Government. In 2006 he was a first year inductee into the California Hall of Fame.

In 2008, Gehry received the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Biennale. In 2010, Gehry received the John Singleton Copley Award from the American Associates of the Royal Academy Trust, and he received the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art Award in New York. In 2014, Gehry received the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts and was elevated to the rank of Commandeur of the Ordre National de Legion d’honneur. Gehry has received honorary doctoral degrees from Occidental College, Whittier College, the California College of Arts and Crafts, the Technical University of Nova Scotia, the Rhode Island School of Design, the California Institute of Arts, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the Otis Art Institute at the Parsons School of Design, the University of Toronto, the University of Southern California, Yale University, Harvard University, the University of Edinburgh, Case Western Reserve, Princeton University and the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.

Gehry has held teaching positions at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions including Harvard University, University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles, Sci-Arc, University of Toronto, Columbia University, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and at Yale University, where he still teaches today.