> [!cite]- Metadata > 2025-06-26 19:26 > Status: #secondary #course > Tags: [[5 - Atlas/Tags/Architecture]] `Read Time: 35m 35s` > Frank Gehry is a renowned Canadian-American architect known for his innovative and sculptural designs, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. > [!Tip] [Class Guide Book](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Tj46TRhs4efVxpfNe1N9uTE1pvptgamw/view?usp=sharing) > [!Abstract]- 1. Introduction > There is a moment of truth, when the artist faces a white canvas, and you make the first move. And all of a sudden, you reveal yourself. > > It's not about trying to be like me, it's about being themselves and finding their own way that I'm promoting. I don't think they should become Frank Gehry's. Big Frank Gehry's, even medium Frank Gehry's. > > Architecture chose me more than I chose it. > > I remember going to the library and picking out a vocational guide on architecture, because why, I don't know, and the University of Toronto class in architecture was very proud that one of their projects was to design a little cottage. Like a little stone cottagge with a fireplace. And I just closed the book and put it away. I wasn't interested in that. > > Chemical Engineer was making paints for General Motors. They were doing a thing called titration. > > Family was poor. I was a truck driver. I went to night school and I took a class in ceramics. Glen Lucans took me aside and said "This ain't for you, but I think architecture might be." > [!abstract]- 2. On Creativity > "When teaching students there's two things that I try to teach them. 1. Is to be themselves. I show them writing their signature. There is a you that's different from a him or her and that's worth pursuing because that's where you're strongest. It's a small thing 2" wide and 1" high, but in the act of writing your signature, you reveal yourself." > > "That's a prime example of the visual impact of your own persona." > > "When you take that into designing a building, or a teapot, or a lightbulb, or whatever it is you're going to do, that persona is still in there." > > "You should enjoy finding yourself, and exploring yourself. They can reject you, and they will." > > "I believe that having a healthy insecurity is crucial to doing the kind of work that I want to do. I've compared notes with actors, composers, musicians, and I've seen the same."\ > > "Sometimes we have to go out and cry in each others beer. I don't think it's a negative thing. It comes with the territory. That insecurity is there always there. I rely on it. It keeps me motivated and I don't dismiss it." > > "The critics trash it, without thinking about it, just because it looks a little different. That's our reality in our profession. There is a strength that comes from that, it keeps you going." > [!Abstract]- 3. Design Philosophy, Part One > "You've heard that guy William Shakespeare. You've heard of him. And you heard of what he said: All the Worlds a Stage. That comment. I think was pretty true. The buildings we build are the background. They should be human friendly. Respectful of people. They should engage you. I would say that 98% of the cities around the world don't do that.' > > "John Cage said: 'Not knowing cheers the knowing.' and I think that's pretty much my philosophy too. I have always felt that if you know what you're going to do in advance then you won't do it. Creativity in all fields starts with the unknown. So you've got to be curious, and not be afraid to be curious. And you've got to find your own voice. It's not something you broadcast. It's just the way you work." > > "We live in a world that's basically a collision of thoughts surrounding us. It's represented in the buildings, music, art, and so the idea of having a neat, clean box, seems like a lie." > > "The messiness is a signature of the times I think. So it's kind of logical that we would express that when we build. The pristine, Miesian, Farnsworth house is antithetical to that. Everything is neatly organized to conform to that aesthetic. And they can't escape it. It's overpowering. The architecture would organize your life, and maybe in a negative way." > > "There are a lot of other kinds of buildings that exist, they are ice cold, people with a lot of money tend to build those. I think they're trying to cleanse their sins or something. I don't know why they do that." > > "You have to consciously understand what makes a person feel comfortable. > > "Architecture is about creating the built environment. The built environment is for people to live in, work in, sleep in, studying in, eat in, die in. As humans we have comforting things that make us feel better. There's a possibility of transferring humanity through inert materials." > > "The statue of the charioteer at Delphi. Sculpted in 500 BC artist unknown. This kind of transferring of feelings through inert materials is something that I aspire toward. It made it clear what a mission could be for an architect." > > "Architecture is a complicated process of engineering, building codes, economics. How could you manage all of that to in the end produce something that can transfer feelings? For me that's a mission." > > "Everything you do with form is compositional. You're always balancing where windows go, where lighting goes. With asymmetry you are more free. You can free associate. It's more casual. It doesn't feel like a disposition. I've always related it more toward democratic values." > > "I don't think the rules are important. You look at some of the greatest art ever. The Edo period of Japan. It ain't symmetrical. I think that kind of freedom of expression in our built environment is a big plus, and we shouldn't lose it." > [!Abstract]- 4. Design Philosophy, Part Two > "There is, I think, a responsibility to respect your neighbor. Like you would anyway. Architecturally respect your neighbor." > > "In the Walt Disney Concert Hall, I followed the curve of the chandler and opened it to the entrance. I was careful to do that. I made the new building out of smaller parts so it wasn't one big building like the chandler. It wasn't competing like another chandler. It had it's own body language." > > "I looked at the material most used, worldwide, that everyone hated, and that was chain-link fencing. So I thought, okay. Let me see if I can make something out of it that people like. I got guffaws." > > "When you see the final thing, it's like the skull of an animal like a horse. But when I was designing the house, I didn't know it was a horses head. I was sort of trusting an ephemeral image in my mind. I couldn't quantify it, but I could draw and sketch. In this case I tried to design it on a computer. The machine on its own will eliminate humanity, if left to its own devices." > > "If you just go from computer to construction, you eliminate human touch. Buildings are becoming more faceless and less inviting." > > "Promise me that whatever you do going forward, no matter how small it is, whatever project you make or build or design, make sure it's the best you could possibly do for that work. You're judged always by each step along the way." > > "Knowing when you're done is maybe the hardest thing. It's self-editing." > > "It's healthy to have a done date. Otherwise you'll go on forever. Young people don't always have the discipline. In my case I was drafted into the army and I spent two years being disciplined. I think it was a good thing." > > "I never know that my projects will be a success. I also never presume that they are. I just try to make them that way." > > "Don't dine out on your success. With my successes I can refer to them in defense." > > "I'll do my best. That's all you can say. You have to maintain a level of optimism that you can pull it off." > [!Abstract]- 5. Generating Ideas > "The greatest thing I've heard anyone say is from Wayne Shorter. A Jazz musician. 'You can't rehearse what you ain't invented yet." > > "That's how the creative process works. It just appears. You don't know where it's coming from. Don't overthink it. Don't tell anybody I didn't know what I was doing." > > "There are similarities when you project images. Now we are doing a brick facade. The brick doesn't hit the ground. It's in suspension. Well that's stupid to do that. Brick is heavy, you shouldn't do that. So we were gonna kill it. But I couldn't get it out of my mind. I couldn't stop. So now the house is being designed and the client loves it. So far." > > "Create the logic for it as you go. Why would you do it? Why go for that? You can take something familiar and stretch it into an unfamiliar place. You can make a fly stop a train." > > "I'll look back at something I did ten years ago that looks better than what I'm doing now and I'll freak out. I'll wonder why I abandoned that." > > "I think it's because, once we've done it, It's dishonest somehow. Taking something you've already done and using it somehow. It feels like a weakness. That feels like an issue that we should all talk about. It's probably not a weakness it's something that would be worth doing. Our culture says well you don't want to repeat yourself." > > "Mies van der Rohe's Lakeshore towers sit on a slab of travertine that's 1 7/8" thick and its just this platform. It's so powerful. There are these little victories. It's beautiful and elegant. I want to hug him just for that." > > "Often we indulge ourselves with the issue of creative block. I find that an inexcusable position. It's all creative block. You're always blocked. It's never different. If succumb to it, and quantify it, and name it. That's all bologna. There's always a creative block. It's a waste of time. My advice is forget about creative block. Just assume you're always blocked. You don't know what the hell you're doing anyway." > > "Henry James said creativity is like having a big stick in a deep barrel of something, and you turn the stick around and around, then you pull it up and all of the sudden. There's a big idea." > > "You can have eureka moments. I don't trust them. I want to test them. So it's not a eureka moment. It's more like. This looks interesting, lets see where it goes." > > "We have to look at it long enough until we hate it. We have to take the next step from there. I have sleepless nights about it. Some nights I wake up worried that we're not going to get there. You have to take the risk." > > "Well first I'll complain. Haha. On a good day I'll work on two or three projects. I don't break for long lunches. Maybe 15 minutes at the most." > > "I couldn't tell you the series of decisions that happened. It's like Jazz. It gets modified moment by moment. > [!Abstract]- 6. Frank's Inspirations > "I'm influenced by a lot of people. I read a lot of stuff. I'm influenced by a lot of stuff." > > "You have to search these great works of art. Not to copy them. To understand what they meant." > > "I was fascinated with the fold. Everybody through the history of art and architecture had been fascinated with the fold. Michelangelo spent a great part of his time drawing folds. It's primitive and there's something magical about exploring that idea in something as concrete as a building." > > "Michelangelo, Borromini, Bernini, those guys. In Dijon there is a sarcophagus of Phillip Debold and surrounding it there are figures by Claus Sluter. If you look at the hooded monk figures, I didn't realize I had literally taken it until later." > > "Looking at Le Corbusier's paintings and then seeing his design of Ron champ. I could seen the direct line and realized at least this artist could work out through different media." > > "Michael Heizer's sculptures and the scale of them. He's an intellectual primitive and I'm very attracted to that kind of thinking." > > "If you see a painting and you can't forget it, you start riffing off it. Subconsciously do it. Trust it and explore it. > > "Study characters like me. Robert Smithson, his philosophy and his writings, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Robert Venturi, Rem Koolhaas, Thom Mayne. Those are wonderful people to study." > > "In the end it has to be you, your conscience, your talent, your mind, directed to creating a building for an environment that other people are going to use. That has the responsibility of being a good neighbor. Has the responsibility of keeping the rain out. That people can comfortably live, work, play. All the things you do in buildings." > [!Abstract]- 7. Designing Obstacles > "As a practicing architect, you are constantly confronted with constraints. Gravity is one of them. Budget is another one. Who's the client. What are their expectations. What are they working with. There's a lot of room for creativity outside of that. You can meet all those constraints and still be creative." > > "Sydney Pollack turned to me and said. You know when I make a Western film for Hollywood I've got constraints. There's a proforma I have to follow. There's no question that I can't make it if there's not the hero and he rides into town and blah-blah. But within all those constraints I have 15% of freedom to make my art." > > "Every artist faces it in their work. Constraints are opportunities to explore things. Identify what is beyond your control." > > "There are times you work on projects. They are very complicated. The length of time from when you are hired to project complete can be 6 or 7 years. Things happen in that length of time. Economies go up and down. Things can happen that you have no control over." > > "It's a puzzle. You have to fit everything together and in the end be a building that everybody likes." > [!Abstract]- 8. Expressing Movement > "I was interested in expressing movement with inert materials. Greek sculptors did it. Elgin marbles. If you look at those warriors, the horses look like they're running. The fabric is wafting in the breeze. It still feels like it's moving. Bernini's St. Theresa in Rome. It feels like a fabric it feels warm and inviting. The fold. The mother cradling the child. It is basic to our feelings of warmth." > > "I urge you to spend more time looking at the folds than the faces." > > "My of my architecture brethren were running out of ideas in Modernism because the dead end of the minimalism thing struck everybody." > > "Malevich took minimalism in his life all the way to the black square, and then he had nothing to do after that, so he quit because it was a dead end. Then he started making costumes." > > "The Museum of Modern Art exhibit on Beaux-Arts was displayed at this time and the seduction was complete. Philip Johnson did the AT&T building. Robert Stern took off. You name it. Everyone was doing Post-Modern architecture and regurgitating the past. And some of it very successfully. And some of it very beautifully. But I was offended because we were looking backward." > > "In a lecture I gave I said the Greek temples you are emulating are anthropomorphic and if you really have to go back why don't you go back 300 million years to fish. That just came out automatically. I don't know why. And then I started drawing fish." > > "Hiroshige drew beautiful Japanese paintings with carp. Flowing tails and fins. I just drew fish in my sketchbook. I was approached by a fashion house to design a fish sculpture. I went to Chinichata in Rome and designed a 35-foot sculpture in wood." > > "It was a super piece of kitsch and it was embarrassing. I had a hole in it and put some fashion figures inside like Jonah and the whale. I was standing beside one of the directors of a French museum who hated my work. We were both looking at this enormous piece of kitsch and I thought, man I'm giving this guy fuel for the fire. He says to me how did you do that? I think it moved."
 > > "I had the opportunity to do a show at the walker museum of my work. I decided to make the fish. I cut the tail off and I cut the head off. I got rid of the fins. I made it in leaad copper. And it stil moved. That was my eureka moment!" > > "I explored the curved forms which led to Bilbao. Which in my mind expressed movement. The idea that these shapes didn't appear static. That replaced the dead end of minimalism and decoration. Period!" > [!Abstract]- 9. Creating with Your Client > "When your working with a client they have feelings. They have needs that change from day to day. It's non linear. You've got to roll with the punches. I think of it like steering a boat." > > "If it's someone's house, they're living in it. I don't want to just make a sculpture and say here it is, take it or leave it." > > "Every project you do it's important to develop a trust relationship with your client where they know that you're working for them. You're bringing your art form to them. It sounds pompous, but think of Michelangelo and Pope Julius." > > "Take your time to understand the client and what their needs are. When you're through they'll love you and you'll get another job because of it." > > "If you're working with the program that has a square footage attached to it. The square footage has a dollar attatched to it. A budget of $1000 a square foot would not be a fancy house but fairly reasonable. You have to stay real with the economics the whole way through. Even if they are the richest people in the world don't presume that." > > "With every architect comes our fingerprint, our aesthetics, our way of doing things." > > "1-8th inch scale models allows you to mess with the site. 1-4th inch models allow you to get into the rooms. The rooms are blocked out. We know that a living room is 14-16' wide and 20-30' long lets say. These are abstract blocks of wood. You just place them there they are talking points." > > "You're educating them so that they can respond to you." > > "Explore materials that fit both budget and design." > > "It's all about making places better. So people will stop building fences and separating themselves and buying guns. > [!Abstract]- 10. Takeaways from the Walt Disney Concert Hall > "When I was starting out I didn't have the power to make some of the demands based on the situation. The client group hired a project manager. The client group hired an executive architect, someone I approved, but had all the political connections so that his office was considered the adult and I was the decoration on the side. The mistake was to not draw a line in the sand." > > "I said it publicly in the meeting and it was recorded in the meeting notes. I said we're heading for a disaster. You had better do something about it and nobody would look at it. People would read it how they wanted it. They said the executive architect was 60% complete with his drawings so they could go out and get steel bids and I said the executive architect was only 30% done with his drawings and you couldn't get steel bids. The executive architect couldn't keep up the project and it failed. I think they lost something like $60 million dollars. It was all beyond my control. I warned it, I pre-warned it, it did fail and guess who got blamed. Me." > > "The client hired an outside consultant to look at what went wrong. They hired developer Jerry Hines to do the forensic. He looked at me and he said Mr. Gehry you've been fucked. and I hugged him. My relationship to the project changed after that." > > Research what works. The relationship between orchestra and audience is important. Certainly the Berlin Philharmonic has that. It seemed like it shouldn't be working but it does. How did they do it? It's like a magic trick. I went to Berlin five or six times. Enough to digest it. To figure it out. > > We went to Leipzig. Gavan house which the same acoustician had done. It didn't work. The sightlines didn't work so I couldn't figure out why that was. > > What moved me was the concert cabal. It had 700 seats behind the conductor. > > The acousticians from Japan really figured out how to hone in on the acoustics. What they did, that someone should have done earlier. Is they built a 1-10 model of the great concert halls that worked. What they did is they built them, they sealed them in a box, filled it with nitrogen, put sounds in and they tested every seat. That gave them a basis for comparison. > > So we built a 1-10 and put figures in it. They all looked Japanese it was funny, then filled it with nitrogen and they played Mozart in it, and then gave me copy of the sound. It was kind of bogus I thought. > > We had the 1-10 model in our office and every conductor that came to LA fill we put them in the 1-10 model. So we put Pierre Boules in there, he stayed for a couple of hours, we gave him a sandwich. After a while he gave the thumbs up and said okay this is going to work. I trusted him more than anybody. > > In the first go around we designed the building in stone because a metal building at night is hard to light. It's like a cheap refrigerator somehow. It cost $5 million dollars less to design it in metal. So the powers that be made it metal. > > There's a box on each side. You can see it in a little model that I have here. The boxes are toilets, stairways, and they have to join around to the front. There's a foyer in front, and these join around to the middle and that's all we did , that's the scheme. And what we did with the boxes on the side is if a metal piece protruded out we twisted its corner to get those waves. I wanted to give it a sense of movement so it wasn't an inert box. > > We got a lot of complaints from the philharmonic about there not being enough restrooms. So I was a bad boy and snuck in more women's restrooms. The people on the board know what I did. > > "I called Eso Pegasala and our conductor and told them can you meet me at the hall I think we can get a sense of what it might be like. And since neither of us has the patience to wait until its finished. If you're up for it. And can you bring a musical instrument." > > "He started to play unaccompanied Bach. we grabbed each others hands and started crying because it was so beautiful. and the sound that we heard was pretty close to what we got. It was interesting. It gets very emotional these things. > > "When the hall opened at the first rehearsal we sat in the first row. I watched the first bass player because I knew that the most subtle thing that had to happen was the bass response because that was missing in the chandler hall. He gave the thumbs up. After playing a few minutes Eso Pecca stopped and said we'll take it." > [!Abstract]- 11. Takeaways from 8 Spruce Street > "When you're meeting with clients, first talk about their reality. Then show them the changes from reality you're proposing and what the delta of cost will be. Have them think through whether that's a valuable thing or not." > > "We asked the client to hire the architect who does all the standard apartment buildings in New York to make a model of what would be the cheapest most straightforward and what they would build for any client if they were hired." > > "So that gave us a baseline. We know the program. How much it costs. We know it's buildable. We just know it's not anything worth building because they've already built one hundred of them." > > "Normally architects would stop here. Since we were who we were we continued to make models. > > The art of the curtain wall > > Now if you go to New York, a lot of the lower building has bay windows. And they're nice, you go in a room and walk toward a bay window then all of a sudden you're in space. You sit down and you feel like you're outside and you're closer to the world around you. > > We wanted to have the fabric look like it was blowing in the wind. For this building we were trying to come up with a language that resonated with the older buildings around us. We were also trying to get feeling into the building with the curtain wall. That it would have humanity to it. > > Do you know the difference between Bernini curves and Michelangelo curves? The difference is Michelangelo curves are soft and Bernini curves are kind of edgy. > [!Abstract]- 12. Neighborhood and Context > I try to work with context its an important part of it. They built Paris ecote they called it. They put all the modern stuff at the end of the champs-Elysée's and its got its own world. It doesn't interfere with the 19th century Paris that we all love. It's a humanity thing. > > I'm not suggesting we make 19th century buildings, I'm far from it. I'm talking about humanity scale that the 19th century respected and we should also respect. These places are for people. > > The scale of a tower in Manhattan is determined by economics and zoning. The feel of the tower, or the space, or the building can be iconic and self-referential. Or it can be a friend to the neighbors, it can talk to its neighbors, it can become part of a neighborhood. > > In the case of 8 Spruce Street I was trying to talk to the Woolworth tower and the Brooklyn bridge and make an ensemble with them. The terracotta bands on the Woolworth building are a certain width and I used that same width on the Bernini folds. There were two breaks on the Woolworth tower so I made two breaks on our tower. > > Design for human interaction first and neighborhood scale second. It starts with economics of course. The program that relates to the land value and the marketing. There's a lot of variety within that and it's up to us to discover that. To explore that. Try different model groupings and see how they fit. > > New York has the Lincoln center and they did it their way. We did it our way. > [!Abstract]- 13. Materials and Prototyping > Research and Play with the latest materials > > "You sort of get focused on something you want to get accomplished and then doggedly make it work." > > "White brick. How do you make a brick house that doesn't feel like a brick house? How do you make it look like a fabric and retain the brick quality yet make it softer? > > "We've been building models with various types of brick. We have a boneyard outside the office where we keep playing with materials. Our biggest research is in glass." > > "How do you get a feeling in glass that has humanity to it, so it doesn't feel like all the faceless glass buildings from around the world? How do you deal with the energy issues of the glass?" > > "Like in the Barry Diller building we had no idea that you could cold bent the glass 6" and get a curved glass wall for free. You didn't have to cast it, in order to vet it we had to go to the insurance company, and because it was a double wall, it was a sealed unit with double glazing we had to get an approval from the insurance company for how much bend they would allow. They said 4". So we made Barry Diller's building 3.5" > > I think that's the level of detail you have to be willing to get into. You can't just sluff it off. > > There are breakthroughs in form that Zaha Hadid and others have done that are interesting, but there also need to be breakthroughs in the materials themselves. > > Test How New Materials Play With Light > > We're always looking around for new materials. There's an aerated aluminum that's made for blast protection on Humvees. It's very beautiful and I got all excited about it and playing with it. > > I always like to think that if you use the materials right the light paints on it. Painting light with the materials. Paint with it. > > We made maquettes and realized that the cellular quality sucked all the light out of it so it wasn't as friendly from a distance. It had a kind of dour look to it that we didn't expect so we abandoned it. > > Get creative with materials that suit your budget. When thinking about the Concert Hall I was thinking about a building that you go to in the evening. A building you go to in the evening would have been stone because the ambient light in the neighborhood, without putting spotlights on it, would be soft and mellow. > > At the same time with did the building in Bilbao with titanium. Titanium was fortuitous because it was dumped on the market by the Russians so it was underbid stainless steel. We took advantage of it. > > It was successful in Bilbao because the material is buttery looking in grey light and Bilbao has a lot of cloudy grey light and it worked. > > Fast forward Disney Hall - the stone was too heavy, titanium was too expensive, so we had to use stainless steel. We studied the material extensively. It's difficult to light stainless steel at night, it can look like a cheap refrigerator. I was constantly aware of that. That's still an ongoing saga. > > I think you have to spend time with the mechanical systems people. Figure out what leeway is there. What can be done within budgets. What can be done that doesn't lead to ugly stuff all over your building. > > Show Clients What Can Be Done > > As past of the process you have to cost estimate. You have to show them what can be done and that they can afford it. > > I used Geothermal on a house and what I got is a house that's very quiet. I didn't expect that. You walk in and you don't hear any motors. That's a very special feeling. > > All of these human elements come into play and are worth considering. > > You must control the budget. Make that a value. People don't realize cost and construction cost. > [!Abstract]- 14. Residential Projects > I'm careful in who I sign up with. Maybe that's not normal in our field. I try to understand people and what their intentions are when I sign up to do the work. If I don't feel comfortable I pass. > > Once you get into it you are spending a lot of time with the people. Why are they taking their hard earnings to spend it on the building? > > Ask questions and listen > > Often in residential you are working with couples. Often couples will have differences of opinion. Often working on a house will bring out the worst in both of them and quite often they split. Sometimes it gets very personal. > > Spend time with the people and try to figure out who they are. Look at their belongings and items that can tell you about them. > > Functional issues are in the pro forma. Figure out what their budget is and what their program is. > > Do they want it all in very close quarters or do they want it spread out? What's the land like? If it's tight should they be on two floors? Discuss the neighborhood with the client. Point out to them the aesthetic surround that they are in. Do they want it to be more private or more open? > > Keep the client involved. I make models of the site. Models of the program. I place the program on the site and start to explore relationships with the clients with the blocks. Play with blocks as a way of exploring the program with the client. The blocks are meant to represent the scale of the room. > > The personal stuff is like which way people want to face their beds. They are superstitious about that and they don't tell you about it until its too late sometimes. I use a lot of wood. I have some clients that hate wood. What, you don't use wood? > > Clients feel as if they designed the house themselves when I'm finished with them. > > Be Parental > > Be very thorough so we know what the facts are and what people are looking for. You're designing for somebody, so remember you are. Be parental. Stay on top of it. Convince them that you are controlling it, that you are watching it, that you're on top of those things. > [!Abstract]- 15. Business > My father used to tell me I wasn't a business man so I convinced myself that I wasn't a business man. I've run an office since 1964 and it's been profitable and everybody gets paid and everyone gets a Christmas bonus. That's been 1964. > > Free labor is a disease that happens in the profession. A lot of people get work by doing a lot of free work. If they can't afford to do it they get a lot of student labor and don't pay them very much. > > I didn't borrow money. That's the other thing I didn't do. > > You don't have to be rich to do this stuff. You have to have the heart and the will and the tenacity to not fold under pressure. Understand your responsibility in the game. > > Have financial integrity. If you have a sense of responsibility toward your client, toward making a building, toward creating, you also have to have a responsible construct in your own office. So that there isn't a failure along the way that puts a client at risk. > > Running the office responsibly so that it has financial integrity is important. A lot of my brethren don't treat it like a priority. Creating that discipline has worked for me. It's not a get rich discipline. But it's a solid financial discipline. > > Be a master builder > > I was trained in the 1950s and was fortunate to have teachers who talked about how to build buildings. The design process included constructability. If the architect does not have control of constructability then 9 out of 10 it will be over budget, then the owner freaks out and turns to the contractor. Then the contractor and the owner concoct ways to reduce the budget. The architect is marginalized in this process. > > The AIA has proposed a model of the Architect Contractor Owner being partners in the development of a building. It sounds wonderful. Inevitably the owner and the contractor will prevail and the architect will be marginalized because the contractor will say "well you can't do that" or "that costs too much" in the heat of battle it's easier to say that than to say "wait a minute lets try to figure this thing out." > > You have to be willing to fight it into the ground until they finally see that they can do it for the budget. > > Prove your design can be built. "Well that's a great design, but you can't build it." Fortunately the way we work we are very thorough and I think this is the important thing. Do not be caught like that. > > We had carefully gone through the most difficult parts of the building and how they were to be built and had mocked them up in actual full scale and solved it technically. We showed it to everyone in the parking lot. > > Give confidence to the people who are paying for it. > > If you are going to be in this profession to build buildings. You've got to know how to build them. > > Fight Waste > > The construction industry is at least 30% waste. > > Our drawings are made in two-dimensional drawings for a three dimensional building, which leads to misunderstandings. Those misunderstandings are built into the General Contractors Pro Forma for 15% change orders and every client expects they are going to pay that rate. And they don't complain. With the technology we have we can overcome that and eliminate that. > > Clarity of the drawings. Taking responsibility. No change orders. > [!Abstract]- 16. Working With a Team > When I started in practice I couldn't afford a very big team. I was doing a little bit of teaching. I met a young guy, and he started working with me. > > It was a small team. Friendly. We went to lunch together and dinner. Talked a lot and we complained about everybody. We built little buildings and houses and things. > > I told people that if they stayed with the company longer than 5 years they were damaged goods. I worked in a personal rut that I became comfortable with. > > As the team grows, focus on adding technical staff. It took a long time to do it but now we have a highly technical staff that can deliver buildings on time on budget. > > Anyone these days can build a model on the computer and make a 3D model. Making the building is a whole other thing. You have to know how to build. > > Encourage participation and empower your employees. I love when there's a feeling of involvement and I know they're intimidated by me as we work. So I try to lessen that intimidation by talking to them. Making them feel like we're friends and that I'm counting on them. > > Developing participatory activity is healthy. > > He's a brand new kid who had been here 4 weeks and he's already telling me what he doesn't like. That was interesting to me. I went back to him and asked "Is this any better?" and he said "Yeah, it's getting there." > > It's an open system of being able to say things. > [!Abstract]- 17. Final Thoughts > I have tried very well to be candid about how I feel about what I'm doing, why, and how. I was hoping to share with students my life's ideas. My identity. How I continue with my work. > > You have to find your place in the business. It can be administrative, it can be design, it can be construction, you can do the business end. You can do a lot of things. Find a group. > > Take your time. Move into it slowly. --- ### **References** [Frank Gehry Teaches Design and Architecture | MasterClass](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/frank-gehry-teaches-design-and-architecture)