Latest Frank Gehry Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• You never build the perfect building. Only Allah is perfect. Life is such. You make decisions on conclusions, then some guy invents something else and the world changes. That's comforting. There's no one way to use museums, no one way to do art. That also means there is no one way to build museums.

  Frank Gehry

  Art, Mean, Perfect

  "Frank Gehry Modern Master". Interview With Zahid Sardar, www.sfgate.com. February 15, 1998.

• It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it. Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone. It can for children - for anyone. It still does for me.

  Frank Gehry

  Art, Children, Architecture

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• Many people put a green button on their collar and feel good, just like a lot of people put an American flag on their lapels and feel patriotic. It's not enough.I'm not dismissing it.

  Frank Gehry

  Patriotic, People, Feel Good

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• 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

  Responsibility, Together, Serious

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• I do my best to choose carefully. If I don’t feel that collaboration is going to happen, I say no. Think about it. These projects can involve a five-to-seven-year partnership. If you don’t feel comfortable with someone, you can’t get rid of them. I just walked away from a job for that reason. Every one of these projects is an emotional investment, like falling in love. You’ve got to believe in it and you’ve got to like the people you work with.

  Frank Gehry

  Falling In Love, Believe, Love You

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• Childhood play is nothing more than an expression of our individuality and preparation for human interaction. Everybody’s an artist. Unfortunately we don’t treat them as such.

  Frank Gehry

  Artist, Childhood, Preparation

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• Generally people are afraid. They pretend they aren’t; it’s part of the denial. We’re all part of it. As much as we pretend otherwise, we want what’s comfortable, and we’re afraid of the different. We’re afraid of change. It happened in Los Angeles, too, when the first models of Disney Hall were shown. You should have heard the outcry from the public, critics and press. It was called “broken crockery,” “outlandish” and blah blah blah. Of course now the feeling is different.

  Frank Gehry

  People, Broken, Feelings

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me."

  Frank Gehry

  People, World, Accepting

  Source: amandajbailey.wordpress.com

• 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

  Thinking, Feelings, Humanity

  Source: www.designcurial.com

• What I have learned about museum buildings is that buildings have to have iconic presentations. The position of the art museum vis-a-vis other civic buildings needs to be hierarchal in the community. It has to be equal to the library and the courthouse.

  Frank Gehry

  Art, Community, Library

  Source: www.sfgate.com

• I used to read more when I was a kid than I do now. It was all sort of fuel for the fire to teach you how to think and how to make things and it informed the architecture that I was doing. It's better coming in with that history and that kind of knowledge and depth of understanding of humanity that is very important for building buildings - for understanding people and how they should live and how you could make your lives better and stuff like that.

  Frank Gehry

  Kids, Thinking, Fire

  Source: blog.americansforthearts.org

• I'm inspired by a lot of stuff. I always was interested in sculpture and painting and music and literature and all those things. There's no one thing.

  Frank Gehry

  Sculpture, Literature, Stuff

  Source: blog.americansforthearts.org

• My father always told me that I was going to be a failure - I think he was more talking about himself, but I didn't know it at the time.

  Frank Gehry

  Father, Thinking, Talking

  Source: blog.americansforthearts.org

• Just because you are an architect and make decent buildings does not mean that you can suddenly become a set designer for one of the best avant-garde dancers in the world.

  Frank Gehry

  Mean, Dancer, Doe

  "'Available Light' Interviews: Frank Gehry, Lucinda Childs, and John Adams". Interview with Julie Lazar, www.kcet.org.

• When you agree to collaborate, you agree to jump off a cliff holding hands with everyone, hoping the resourcefulness of each will insure that you all land on your feet.

  Frank Gehry

  Hands, Land, Feet

  "'Available Light' Interviews: Frank Gehry, Lucinda Childs, and John Adams". Interview with Julie Lazar, www.kcet.org.

• Ideas exist in the marketplace; they are thrown out for everyone to use.

  Frank Gehry

  Ideas, Use, Thrown

  "'Available Light' Interviews: Frank Gehry, Lucinda Childs, and John Adams". Interview with Julie Lazar, www.kcet.org.

• Picasso could use everyone's paintings and transform them into his own. He was using ideas from all of his contemporaries.

  Frank Gehry

  Ideas, Use, Painting

  "'Available Light' Interviews: Frank Gehry, Lucinda Childs, and John Adams". Interview with Julie Lazar, www.kcet.org. June 5, 2015.

• I am just relating to the world we live in. I see some order in it, even though it looks like mush.

  Frank Gehry

  Order, Looks, World

  "'Available Light' Interviews: Frank Gehry, Lucinda Childs, and John Adams". Interview with Julie Lazar, www.kcet.org.

• There is an order to our environment, a broader order.

  Frank Gehry

  Order, Environment, Our Environment

  "'Available Light' Interviews: Frank Gehry, Lucinda Childs, and John Adams". Interview with Julie Lazar, www.kcet.org.

• Architecture and any art can transform a person, even save someone. It can for children - for anyone. It still does for me.

  Frank Gehry

  Art, Children, Doe

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. March 1, 2011.

• Many people put a green button on their collar and feel good, just like a lot of people put an American flag on their lapels and feel patriotic. It's not enough.

  Frank Gehry

  Patriotic, People, Feel Good

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. March 1, 2011.

• It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it.

  Frank Gehry

  Architecture, Sometimes

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. March 1, 2011.

• China is building cities for a 20 to 40 percent increase in population. India is quickly growing. The carbon footprints of that and other development around the world are overwhelming.

  Frank Gehry

  Cities, Carbon Footprint, India

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. March 1, 2011.

• Cardboard is another material that's ubiquitous and everybody hates, yet when I made furniture with it everybody loved it.

  Frank Gehry

  Hate, Furniture, Made

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. March 1, 2011.

• In the art world Robert Rauschenberg had been combining common materials that people thought was art and beautiful, and it was. If he could do that, I could emulate him.

  Frank Gehry

  Beautiful, Art, People

  Interview with David Sheff, www.playboy.com. March 1, 2011.