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MOVIE REVIEW . Sketches of Frank Gehry

by Kris   ⋅   April 24, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

When I was first introduced to Frank Gehry’s work, I honestly did not like it. Giant binoculars (Chiat/Day/Mojo Headquarters) and fish sculptures (Fishdance restaurant in Kobe, Japan), oh how literal. His Nationale-Nederlanden office building in Prague is Dali-esque at best and his Wynton Guest House looked like kinderblocks to me. Really, I did not understand the appeal. And it’s not that I wasn’t interested in deconstructivism. I love Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne (Morphosis), Koolhaas, even Himmelblau types whom I personally dub “the Michael Graves deconstructivists”, forcing abstract shapes through addition rather than overall design. It wasn’t until his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (pictured below right) that I received his genius. Evidently, so did he.

No architect enthusiast can deny that Gehry has defined entryways, even though some visitors may still be searching. His cantilevered entrance for the Vitra Design Museum (Museum of Chairs) in Germany that appears to be holding on by a thread, perched and ready to plummet on its patrons, I applauded as a prankster’s edge. But in Sydney Pollack’s documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry, we learn that the Vitra would be the thorn in his side, revolting in the external spiral staircase that would not behave.

See, the Vitra was conceived back in the 80s, before CAD, before home computer type 3D renderings. Contractors were limited to their own interpretation of an architect’s 2D line drawings, struggling to manipulate the rigid materials in the field. This is why the Vitra staircase appears puckered, far from seamless. It seems odd to nitpick when Gehry’s unconventional and downright sloppy design methods derive from jaunty scribbles to snipping up mobius strips of cardstock and haphazardly scotchtaping it to shoddy grids. That being said, you can just imagine the magical melding of studio papercraft tinkering and heavy 3D technology to produce beautifully bizarre structures such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and The Experience Music Project in Seattle, some of Gehry’s best work to date, and Pollack shows us nifty transitions from sketch to model to completed site.

While Frank Gehry’s buildings reflect fluidity, he’d be the first to describe his resolute ego. As you watch Sketches of Frank Gehry, you just can’t believe that this sweet bespeckled mumbly man could ever possess raging arrogance, in fact he is annoyingly self-effacing. Frank Gehry is a man who changed his own surname (from Goldberg) to appease his first wife who wished to sever semitic ties. He is a man who credits family members, teachers and even a graphologist who all corralled him towards architectural pursuits. “I was freaked out in love with flying so I could have gone that way,” he reflects. Why, as the architect fondly recollects how his grandmother played with makeshift building blocks with him, you can even imagine a fuzzy halo forming above his fluffy white locks. But Frank Gehry is also the man who up and left his wife and two daughters one day and who decided long ago to be his own architect. One glance at his buildings prove a drive for staunch individualism, so who is Frank Gehry, Ferdinand or just the bull?

Is this what Pollack intended? Sydney Pollack, well known for his direction in cross-dressin’ Tootsie also tries to show two sides of Gehry, albeit including only one almost naysayer who states that it is his purpose as a reviewer to criticize. Of course most of Sketches of Frank Gehry is a glory piece, slews of interviews of his admirers (even Dennis Hopper is mad about Gehry) but it’s nice to see a glimpse of the dirt, although mostly supplied by the subject himself.

Gehry loves creating and the process of creation with a heady dose of serendipity. “That is so stupid looking, it’s great”, he announces after poring over a model mock-up. Although Pollack’s documentary is a marvelous introduction and glorification of the master architect’s work supplanted with pretty high contrast shots and some inconsistent editing techniques, Sketches of Frank Gehry also mainly deals with the makings of a great architect, the process, and like some of Gehry’s structures, may leave his fans still searching for a way in.

About the Author

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson says these directors/screenwriters rarely disappoint: Peter Greenaway, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gus van Sant. Gregg Araki. Kris claims that Jake Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Desmond Harrington and Casey Affleck are much more than pretty faces.

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