Sketches of Frank Gehry movie review (2006)

Gehry did not begin by designing sculptural buildings. He takes Pollack to look at Santa Monica Place, his conventional 1984 shopping center at the end of the Third Street Mall in Santa Monica. Does Gehry like it? No. We meet his psychiatrist, Milton Wexler, authorized by Gehry to speak about a period in the 1980s when the architect made a breakthrough into his modern work; this process apparently involved, or perhaps even required, divorcing his first wife. All we learn about her from the film is that she pushed for her husband to change his name from Goldberg, to sidestep anti-Semitism. Since he then immediately told everyone "my real name is Goldberg," this was less than perfectly functional, but we understand the form.

Gehry's design process could be inspiring for a kindergarten student. First he doodles on sketch pads. A form emerges. He uses construction paper, scissors and tape to make a three-dimensional model from it. He plays with the model. Eventually, it looks about right. His assistants use computer modeling to work out the stresses and supports, and together with his team he works on the interior spaces. Gehry's buildings are so complex that he believes they would have been impossible before computers (which he does not know how to operate). Certainly the math would have been daunting. Computers assure him that his cardboard fancies are structurally sound.

In this connection, I remember the first famous architect I met, Max Abramowitz. I was sent as a young reporter to interview him on the site of the University of Illinois Assembly Hall, the largest rim-supported building ever made. Seating 16,000 people in a circle, it had no interior supports, and was held together by 500 miles of steel cable wrapped around the rim where the top bowl rested on the bottom.

"Will this be your greatest achievement?" I asked the man who designed the United Nations headquarters.

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