Frank Gehry (1929 - 2025) is universally recognized as one of the great masters of contemporary architecture. His ability to transform ordinary circumstances into opportunities of togetherness, where even in-between spaces can be read as one single vocabulary of movement and feeling, responds to the spirit of each place and to skyline of each city, while simultaneously inventing some of the most profound paradigm shifts of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Across eight thematic chapters, nineteen projects follow the combination of instinct and intellect in Gehry’s creative process: from the rebellious intimacy of his Santa Monica house to the urban choreography of Loyola Law School, from the fragmented monumentality of the Chiat/Day Offices to the titanium tides of the Guggenheim Bilbao and the musical sails of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Through sketches and models of ongoing or unbuilt dreams, architecture emerges as a living organism—as pragmatic and chimerical as any human being, full of invention and expressive poetry.

The exhibition also reveals Gehry’s longstanding dialogue with artists and other architects, especially Álvaro Siza, with whom he worked with on the master plan for the ArtCenter College of Design, in Pasadena, and whose friendship led to numerous exchanges between the United States and Portugal. From Los Angeles to Berlin, Paris to New York, Sydney to Toronto, the selected works feature someone who dissolved the boundaries between sculpture and architecture, gravity and fluidity, memory and future. This is not a retrospective, it’s a celebration of freedom, imagination, and the courage to keep seeing the world anew for nearly one hundred years.

FEATURED THEMES AND PROJECTS:

I. MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY

GEHRY RESIDENCE

Santa Monica, California, USA. 1977–78

CARDBOARD FURNITURE

Easy Edges. 1969–73

Experimental Edges. 1979–82

II. PLACING THINGS TOGETHER AND COMPOSING THE IN-BETWEEN

LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL

Los Angeles, USA. 1978–2003

CHIAT/DAY OFFICES

Venice, California, USA. 1985–91

III. GETTING THE PIECES TO READ AS ONE

VITRA DESIGN MUSEUM

Weil am Rhein, Germany. 1987–89

WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

Los Angeles, USA. 1987–2003

GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM

Bilbao, Spain. 1991–97

IV. FINDING A VOCABULARY

LEWIS RESIDENCE

Lyndhurst, Ohio, USA. 1989–95

V. EXCHANGING LINES: FROM LOS ANGELES TO PORTUGAL

ARTCENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN

Pasadena, California, USA. 2000–01

PARQUE MAYER

Lisbon, Portugal. 2003–04

FERREIRA DE SÁ RUG

Espinho, Portugal. 2012

VI. LOOKING FOR MOVEMENT AND FEELING

DER NEUE ZOLLHOF

Düsseldorf, Germany. 1994–99

DZ BANK

Berlin, Germany. 1995–2001

MARQUÉS DE RISCAL HOTEL

Elciego, Spain. 1999–2006

VII. RESPONDING TO THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON

Paris, France. 2004–14

DR CHAU CHAK WING, UTS

Sydney, Australia. 2009–14

VIII. REFLECTING ON THE SKYLINE

LUMA FOUNDATION

Arles, France. 2007–21

8 SPRUCE STREET

New York, USA. 2003–11

FORMA AT KING STREET

Toronto, Canada. 2014–29 (estimated)

The Century of Gehry exhibition is organized by the Serralves Foundation and curated by its Director of Architecture, António Choupina, together with Gehry Partners and in collaboration with Getty.