Ideas - Pt 1 | The architecture that brought Frank Gehry to tears

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Rebel architect Frank Gehry believed architecture IS art. He strived to evoke emotion in every design. Last Friday, Gehry died at 96 but he never stopped creating. In 2017, IDEAS producer Mary Lynk had a rare opportunity to spend two days with Gehry at his LA studio. Their wide-ranging conversation covers many aspects of his life and career, including a moment at 40 when the sight of an ancient piece of art from 500 BC led him to weep. "I think if you went and looked at it, you would cry too," he told Lynk.*This conversation is a two-part series that delves into Frank Gehry's infusion of humanity into his designs.Listen to Part Two: Architect Frank Gehry on how to exit life

This program is brought to you in part by Spex Savers. Every day, your eyes go through a lot. Squinting at screens, driving into the bright sun, reading in dim light, even late-night drives. That's why regular eye exams are so important. At Spec Savers, every standard eye exam includes an advanced OCT 3D eye scan, technology that helps independent optometrists detect eye and health conditions at their earliest stages. Take care of your eyes. Book your eye exam at Specsavers today from just $99, including an OCT scan.

book at specksavers.cavers.caps are provided by independent optometrists. Prices may vary by location. Visit specksavers.cavers.cai to learn more. This is a CBC podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayad. He was arguably the world's most famous architect, known for his daringly inventive designs, which often put him in the crosshairs of critics. This one guy doesn't even think I'm an architect. He calls me Artist Monquet, and he only likes a certain kind of... Artist Monquet, a French diss from the 1700s for artists who failed to live up to their potential. And he only likes a certain kind of simple boxes. It's strange, and he's gone on...

I like the guy, too. I have fun with him, but he just can't get over it. I'm sort of an aberration that he wants to obliterate. If he could do it without having to go to jail, he'd do it. Who is this guy? I ain't going to tell you. Well, we might not know the name of the critic, but the man criticized as an artist Monkei. The man you just heard has often been called the greatest architect of our time.

Frank Gary. I would think everybody is capable of, creativity if they're curious. Frank Owen Goldberg was born in February 1929 in Toronto, Canada. He became world famous in his late 60s when the stunning Guggenheim Museum opened in Bilbao, Spain. Gary designed that building, and because of that building and others, he became an international celebrity, a rock star in the world of architecture. Although he hated the term Starkitect, almost as much as he seemed to hate the media.

The damn word starcotech, and I was invented by the press, Starcate. Who would call themselves a starcate? So the press invents a name, and then they use it to disparage somebody with. So there is a tendency to want to pull somebody down that is sort of popping up maybe. Too much. I'm popping up too much. They should shoot me. Get rid of me. Well, they'll get rid of me soon. I'm 88. In the summer of 2017, and despite his antipathy toward journalists, Ideas producer Mary Link had the rare opportunity of spending time with Frank Gary

at his office in Los Angeles. And over a couple of days, the media-wary architect opened up, delving into his life, the influences on him, his family, and his personal demons. Frank Gary passed away at the age of 96 on Friday, December 5th, 2025. So Ideas is marking his memory and achievements with our two-part series, Master of His Own Design, Conversations with Frank Gary. Part 1, The Rebel Artist. Frank Gary's office building is in a nondescript corner of Santa Monica, not one of his more daring designs. which tend to be sensual and sculptural.

Gary's headquarters looks more like an industrial warehouse, a blank canvas for this architect provocateur, but it does project a feeling of anticipation, starting with a huge two-story sailcloth curtains hanging over the entrance. When you go through them, it's like entering a wizard's lair. At the front reception, I have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, a promise not to reveal the fantastical models and designs amid creation I will soon walk past.

This is an architectural firm bursting with projects. A while past our appointed meeting, Frank shows up. He's sizing me up. He's wary. Welcome. Yeah, I'm here. After a couple minutes of cautious observation, he becomes warm, engaging, and is quick to laugh. And yet, I feel there's a danger his mood could easily turn dark. Most of all, he's deeply curious, intelligent, thoughtful, and constantly questioning.

A habit that continues in his work as he tinkers with his designs right up to the end, much to the annoyance of some of his clients. And I told him I was going to continue working on it. It would evolve and other things would happen to it. Frank's recalling the design process of Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture. It was funded by Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen. I don't think he understood that. process and it's something a lot of clients don't it's not unusual that they think well this looks

great let's build it you know and it's just the first sketch and i'm i'm too guilty to do that i can't so i have to struggle and suffer frank gary has had to struggle and suffer for much of his life from a tough childhood and lifelong therapy sessions to being the perpetual outsider in the world of architecture, a rebel who shuns conformity at any cost in a field that some purists refuse to call an art. But it's the artistic process of design that compels Frank at nearly 90 to come to work every day,

and it is in his boardroom that we sit down to talk. I ask him, why is he more drawn to the company of artists than architects? I think it was circumstantial maybe. I don't, probably, maybe it would have happened anyway, but when I started working in L.A., something I was doing pissed off the other architects, and I couldn't ever figure it out. And there were a bunch of artists who used to come to the job site, who I knew their work. I didn't know them. And I was kind of amazed that they were interested in what I was doing. so early in my work life.

And they started inviting me to their social stuff. And we became friends. And they were very positive and supportive, whereas the architecture world thought I was crazy or something. You were doing something different. I think sometimes, like the word schadenfreude, you know that word, the German word about, like when people fall from grace because of jealousy.

I think there's a lot of, I mean, maybe because it's competitive in nature, but you were doing something different and architecture sometimes has a movement, and you were always jumping the sides of the movement. I didn't, I didn't, I felt comfortable in my own stuff. I understood curiosity and creativity and that it was valuable, and that one could explore and one could have a signature. I mean, it was obvious to me when you write your name, somebody else writes their name

you can tell the difference and hanging out with the artist gave me some confidence in that because they were doing that I didn't copy their work or anything but there was a feeling of whatever they were doing

it was different than the other people were doing and it was really them and they were in touch with it and there was mutual support in the early days They then got jealous and did all that stuff later. You had the issue later with Richard Serra, and he said you can't have art with plumbing.

Well, I love Richard Serra's work, and I always love talking to him, and we collaborated on a few things, but somehow I said the wrong thing, or did the wrong thing. I don't know what I did. I don't think you're the only person with Richard Serra to lose a friendship,

But going back to the... Richard Serra, who's often been called the world's greatest living sculptor, has been known for being combative at times. Of course, the same could be said of Frank Gehry, but as Frank said, they were once very close friends and collaborators. Frank's buildings and Sarah's sculptures at times appear to share a similar language with their central curves and flowing movement. It's as if they're reaching out to talk to one another.

What are Richard Serra's most famous works is called The Matter of Time. It's a series of massive steel ribbon sculptures that curl and weave through the main gallery in the Guggenheim and Bilbao, the museum, of course, designed by Frank Gehry. But what really seems to bug Richard Serra, and perhaps it's the true cause of their breakup, is when people, and there are many, say that Frank's buildings, such as Bilbao, are not just great works of architecture, but also great works of art. Here is Richard Serra before their falling note talking to American broadcaster Charlie Rose about Frank in the main hall in Bilbao. Frank's a friend of mine, but don't for one minute I think he built that space with me in mind.

He built that big open space that could house one of my pieces. Yes, of course he did. I mean, that's like, you know, I'll throw Richard a bone here. I mean, I don't think he built that space with me and mine. He's built that space with Frank Gehry in mind. It's not that they had my sculpture.

I mean, I think you should be appreciative of the fact that all these architects are saying... I should be appreciative, yeah. Well, you have a lot more respect for sculptors than you do architects. For sure. Absolutely. I mean, architects are not even artists as far as you're concerned. For the most... Absolutely not. Because...

Are you going to tell me buildings or works of art? Yes. Oh, so are people then, and so we have... No, no, no, no, no, no, art. Are you saying to me that Frank Lord Wright never created a single work of art? Whether it's furniture or whether it's... Oh, furniture's art now. Tree, how about, you know, where do you want to stop?

No, I don't know, but I... Art is purposely useless, and that's what makes it more free than buildings. Okay, but is that, but is a difference then... Look, there are aspects in buildings that you can say deal with the provenance of sculpture or deal with the overlay of painting, but don't start telling me buildings or works of art because I don't buy it. If you really pin Frank down and said, hey, what's a distinction, Frank, between you as an architect and Don Judd, right? Frank is parading right now, and so are all of these...

mouthpiece critics that support him as quote the artist oh the mad artist right the architect as artist hogwash don't believe it don't buy it and i don't think society should buy it either and i like frank he's a good friend of mine but i i understand the distinction between what i do and what he does he well i'm not sure frank would agree with his former friend you can listen for yourself as i gingerly wade into these choppy waters with him important the relationship. You like a relationship with a person you're creating, because, I mean, you are very creative, and there's an artistic, strong artistic element. We're not going to call you an artist. We know all that debate between whether architecture is art, but you have... Architecture is an art. Good for you. Good for you. But are you an artist, then?

Well, I don't like to draw the line, so I always say I'm an architect, because I don't want to get into the discussion because I know that's loaded. But, you know, when you let that go in the culture we're in, and you don't demand that the level of art or whatever an artist does, bring your persona into the project like an artist does. You're giving up. That's why all the buildings around the world all look the same because they're just given up. It's generic too, and is it greed? I mean, you look at city cores, and they're all the same.

And you know what kills me? You have this beautiful architecture, a lot of these museums that are iconic. and these houses. But the one percent, that's the one percent or for the public, but the average person lives in just banal, right? How can we make architecture for everybody? Well, we have to understand that it's available, that there are talented people prepared to make it better, but that they don't demand it. And so they accept it. It's denialism, I call it. That's why I did the chain link years ago.

Everybody didn't understand why I was doing that. Gary is known for incorporating chain link fencing into his work. It was his rebuttal against modern architecture and design. I realized that these buildings and cities were being built. People hated them but didn't do anything about it. And they finally looked, yeah, that's another building. It's okay. And I tried to find a material.

that was the essence of that that people hated and I found chain link that was being used that was being produced ubiquitously all over the world and built they couldn't

build enough of it, make enough of it and everybody hated it. Even Gary's long time psychoanalyst Milton Wexler hated the chain link. Milton was a huge influence on Gary who began therapy to deal with anger issues coming out of his difficult childhood, Milton felt the chain link wasn't a healthy

mode of expression for Frank and wanted him to drop it. He thought the chain link and the corgated metal was an expression of anger. And it may have been, but for me, the chain link was searching for trying to understand denialism. And I tried to explain to him, and he's a shrink, you know, and denialism is a big deal and shrink real. And it took me a long time to convince him that I was really doing that and not angry with using chain link as a symbol of anger. Yeah, he kind of equated with prison, that you were creating prisons, right? I don't know what he equated with, but we got over that because I was just trying to figure out. So I picked the material that people used the most and hated the most, and that was chain link.

So they were being in denial? Yeah. So they didn't like it, but they were using it. And everybody didn't like it. And the best case of it was this friend, this Hollywood lawyer, who also was a friend of Milton's. And he used to make fun of me with my chain link. And he would introduce me if I went to his house for dinner at the chain link guy. And so he called me one day. He bought a new house in Bel Air. He was having trouble with his architect on the kitchen, and he asked me if I could come and give him a point of view so he could figure out how to talk to his architect or something like that. And so I went, and it was a brand new house. He spent a lot of money on it. He took me in the front door,

and from the front door I could see the tennis court in the yard, and it was surrounded with green chain link. Then he took me in the kitchen, where he had a problem, you could see the tennis court, and then you went to the dining room, and you could see the tennis court, and you went to the living room, you could see the tennis court, and you went to the bedroom, you could see a tennis court.

So I said, Mickey, you're just making fun of my chain link, and now you love it, right? You really got caught in it. He looked at me, and said, what are you talking about? I said, well, you're looking at it from every room in your house. And he said, what do you mean? He said, that's a tennis court. I said, yeah, but it's surrounded by green chain link.

And he said, but that's a tennis court. So it's a symbol of wealth, the tennis court, but it was surrounded with green chain link. So that's the denialism thing. And that's our cities are like that. Do you like chain link? Do you think aesthetically it's beautiful? Well, I think if you, the way it's used, it's not. But I did a little shopping thing here where I hung them as cur.

and it's beautiful. They move in the wind and let the light through. There's nothing wrong with it, except it's got a bad rap. And so I thought that's sort of a metaphor for how our cities. You know, the cities look like they do. People hate it, but they don't do anything about it. Is it because they don't realize that architecture is important that you are affected by the buildings that surround you? Well, if you're a household that's living on the margins, you know, got to put two kids through college and food on the table, and I mean, I've been there myself struggling. You know, you don't think about art or architects.

You think about survival. So I think we're asking a lot of people to, you know, think about the art of architects. I guess we have to ask the politicians to think about, and the developers to think, and the city planners to think about the architecture and the importance of scale. When you do it, everybody realizes it. Like Bill Bow is a great model, and it was totally unexpected. But the community asked me if I could do something. They referred to Sydney Upper House. They said, you know, Sydney Opera House put Sydney on. on the map. Can you make us a building that puts Bilbao on the map? And I said, you know, I don't know. I can't guarantee that. I haven't done it before. I don't know. I said, I'll do my best work. I guarantee you. And we'll see what happens. Architectural Critics said about Bilbao that Frank Gary just let go

for the first time, I don't know if that's for the first time, but did you let go when you were creating Bilbao? Let go what? I think that he meant that you just let go and let your imagination take over more so than you ever had before or your creativity and how you were designing it, that you just let go. I don't know. Everybody has an opinion of what I did. But, I mean, there's a long, to explain how I got there, you know, you'll realize I didn't just let go. I was looking before Bill Bell, you know, I got through the chain-link thing where I realized there was denialism, right? I was doing my fishy little buildings, and all of a sudden, Arthur Drexler has a show at Norma of Bozart buildings, and it just knocks the socks off everybody.

and then Philip Johnson does AT&T, and everybody becomes a postmodernist, so-called. Philip Johnson and John Brughey's 18T building in Manhattan did have a huge impact in solidifying the post-modern movement in architecture. Their 1984 skyscraper was clad in concrete with a dramatic archtop. It rejected modernism's austere minimalism and coldness, those glass boxes that you saw everywhere, and marked a return to ornamental flourishes and structural curves.

In two years, it was ubiquitous postmodern pediments and all that stuff all over the place. Even though they were abstracted, they were still resonated with the historicism. Historicism that referred to early Greek and Roman classical designs. And while Gary wasn't a big fan of the rigidity associated with the modernist movement, he also thought the postmodernness hadn't shaken things up. enough. I got mad. I said, God, do we have to go back, you know? And I remember in one of my talks, I said, damn it, if you have to go back, why stop at Greece? Why not go back 300 million years before man to fish? They're beautiful, too. I don't know where that came from. It didn't come

from my grandmother's bathtub fish. It came from somewhere. Let me give you some context here. When Frank was growing up in Toronto, his grandmother used to buy live carp every Friday from Kensington Market and put them in a bathtub full of water before turning them to give-filt the fish the next day on the Sabbath. Frank used to like sitting on the bathroom floor staring at the swimming fish. He's often told journalists that's where the idea of incorporating the fish into his designs came from. But he since admitted that story was BS, saying it was the way to feign anti-intellectualism, another example of how he can be coy with the media. Instead, as he just said, that idea popped into his head

during that rant on post-modernism's myopic obsession with the Greeks and the Romans. His fish comment was intuitive inspiration, classic Frank Gehry. I was interested in, what do you do to humanize a modern building? What's the language that replaces historicism and decoration? but it was also you were saying you want to go past the postmodern

which was a sort of a counter to modernism and the sort of dogmatic ways of straight lines and sort of the inhumanity but you didn't know I wanted to do that I just said why do we have to go there and then by accident I said this thing in a talk about the fish and so then I

when I said that I started drawing fish. It was kind of a symbol of my peak about the thing. And I was looking for a language that expressed feeling without resorting to Greek. So Frank and this creative peak went with a fish design in several of his new works, specifically the mid-body of the fish,

curved and swimming, elements of which you can see in his most famous design, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Seeing Bilbao for the first time inspired the godfather of modern architecture, Philip Johnson, to call Frank the greatest architect we have today. So when Philip Johnson flew there first and you were there with him and saw it first

and it's famous that he cried, but he said something along that that's what architecture is about. It's about tears. It's about emotion. It's about evoking emotion. It's there. Oh yeah, there he is. There's... That's really crying.

Yeah, I think it's about emotions and I have a picture of the charioteer. It's 500 BC, Delphi that I went to see when I was 40 years old in Delphi

and I looked at the statue of bronze. I started crying because it was so beautiful. And I thought, how the hell could somebody express emotion 500 BC and it still makes a bloke like me cry. That's what I think we should strive for to do that with our work,

with our putting together materials and in music, sounds, and in painting paint. so I was inspired by that that existed that could happen that that unknown artists from 500 BC could do that and I think if you went and looked at it you would cry too it's just and then there are many more of them from there I think if I went to Bilbao which I haven't had the fortune to go yet I would cry too how do you think you pulled that off that you brought out such a motion So I was looking for something to express emotion.

The fish thing by chance started inhabiting my life because people started asking me to do fish sculptures. I did fish lamps. An Italian fashion house asked me to do a fish sculpture for them. I built a 35-foot long fish in Turino. I built it for a pity. palace, and then it went to Torino, and it had eyes, and it was really kitsch. It was the most kitsch thing, and I was embarrassed. It was so kitsch. But as I stood before it, I felt it was

moving. It did it, and I couldn't figure out how I did that. And so I cut off the tail and cut off the head and got rid of all the kitschy parts for a show at the walker, and it still did it. So I realized that I was into something, I think the pizza's here. You can get, do you want to get some pizza first? Let me finish it. So I realized I was into understanding a replacement for decoration because I was creating a feeling with a form, not as good as the Greek guy, but at least it was there. And so those, that language started to be interesting to me. When I got to do Bilbao, I carried it further.

I carried those forms into the building, which it lent itself to. And I could build them very inexpensively. People think it was very expensive. I built them really inexpensively because I had this fancy computer stuff I was already playing with. So we built it for 300 bucks a square foot at the time. So the whole cost of that building was 80 million euros. and since it opened, it's earned over 4 billion euros for a city. So who knew?

I got to go. Okay. Got to go. It means got to go for pizza with some of his staff after talking with me for just a short time. And the reason for this impromptu pizza party? It was a Monday. The next day was July 4th, Independence Day. So most of his younger staff had opted to take a lot.

long weekend. That's surprise, Frank, not out of a Scrooge-like sense of resenting his employee's time off, but more puzzlement that they didn't share his obsession to be always working, always designing. So to say, thanks to those who came in, he bought everyone pizza for lunch. He does invite me as well, but I say no, I just want a chance to revel and sit in silence in this boardroom that is this chocolate block with models and art and these crazy, wonderful Frank Gary designed chairs. I just want to take it all in and wait for Frank to come back from pizza. Oh, to be in that room surrounded by Frank Gary's work. When Gary won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989, art critic and juror Ada Louise Huxable said,

one cannot think of anything he has done that doesn't make one smile. You're listening to CBC Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyed. This program is brought to you in part by Specsavers. Every day, your eyes go through a lot. Squinting at screens, driving into the bright sun, reading in dim light, even late-night drives. That's why regular eye exams are so important. At Specsavers, every standard eye exam includes an advanced. advanced OCT 3D eye scan, technology that helps independent optometrists detect eye and health conditions at their earliest stages. Take care of your eyes.

Book your eye exam at spec savers today from just $99, including an OCT scan. Book at specksavers.cavers.cairists. Prices may vary by location. Visit specksavers.cavers.cai to learn more. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivered. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough, defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at Lovescarbro.cairbo.ca.a. Given the recent passing of world-renowned architect Frank Gary, were reprising the conversations he had with ideas producers.

Mary Link, recorded in Los Angeles in the summer of 2017 when Gary was 88. Can I get you to come a little closer to me? You don't mind? Perfect. Okay, let's go for it. So we were talking before just now about movement and the importance of movement in terms of warmth and everything. How do you achieve movement then in architecture? sure well it's just the form the form has it feels like it's moving I don't know how to explain it I don't know how to explain it either I mean I look at elegant marbles like how do you explain that too and sometimes I don't know I'm just asking you as a neophyte how how movement works because it does

well the elegant marbles the the warriors have their shields and they are pushing into the stone And when you look at them, you feel they're pushing into the stone. So that's what implies movement, and you read it, you feel it. And the horses feel like they could be on the verge moving, or they're about to move. So I think that idea has been around for hundreds of years. And it's an obvious thing when you look at it, think about it. It's just that people don't think about it in terms of architecture. And it's just one idea, you know, trying to use curve shapes to imply movement

because squares don't imply movement unless you make toppling boxes or something like that. But the computer program, working with the French software, opened the door to making it possible to draw it so that it was so clear, clearly defined that it didn't end up costing more. And it was that breakthrough that let me go free. And computers have freed Frank Gary, allowing him to build even more complex designs. Although, it's been said somewhat, jokingly,

that the only time Frank Gary personally uses a computer is to throw it at someone. The fact is, Frank Gary's architectural firm has been at the forefront for a dash. software for designers, but Frank still begins his designs the traditional way, without technology and with an open mind. So do you have a predetermined shape when you begin? No, I don't. I don't. I do a lot of studies. I start with blocks. Do you start with a line drawing too first? Both. I do both at the same time. I do blocks and line drawings. And what's the process of getting a line

drawing into the computer, how do you take Frank Gary's line drawings which are wildly beautiful and erratic and gorgeous, but some of us couldn't tell what the billion is going to look like. How do you take that and put into a computer? I think they take the forms and shapes from the models. They measure them.

I don't do it in the computer. I'm trying to learn to do it in the computer, but I think I'm too old for that. So Frank continues to design first by drawing or making wooden models. Then he sits down beside a younger staff member as he or she converts Frank's early designs into a computer image. The process drives him crazy, but he understands it's a necessary evil.

When you look at the imagery of the computer, it doesn't have any feeling to it. And when you draw, it does. And when I make models, it does. But I understand I have to hold this nice image that I have. It has all the feelings and stuff that I want to put in. I have to hold that in my head while I'm looking at this washed out version. And I can't do it for long. The first time I did it, I lasted 3.4 minutes.

And I went out screaming, but I'm a little better at it now. If I can learn to do that, I could save a lot of model making and a lot of... And so a lot of my friends who are architects seem to be able to use, like Zaha Hadid could work directly on the computer. She didn't need to do a lot of modeling and drawing first. And she had a consistent language that she used, so it was easier. She stayed within the bounds of that language, and I don't do that, so every building has a different kind of persona to it.

I think maybe I don't know anything, so I'll just say I think here, without any knowledge. There's a beauty to creativity and art that it's nice to think that technology can't do everything, that perhaps Frank Gehry needs to draw first. The technology has a footprint, fingerprint. So you can see it in some, I mean, like the rhino technology creates a certain look. You can tell when a building was designed on Rhino because it has those kind of curves. Yeah, that's not, it doesn't interest me.

I use the same software, but I use Rino like in smaller parts so it doesn't deliver the image. I control the image. I'd hate to think of you as generic and being influenced. So technology can't do everything. There's still intuition and creativity at the beginning. And I think that that, That's reassuring to hear when the world is being taken over by technology.

So don't learn, Frank. Don't learn the computer. That's right. I'm 88, so I don't think I can learn. Luckily, he has others to convert his complex designs into the computer and then into the real world, such as his critically acclaimed 76-story Manhattan skyscraper, known simply as New York by Gary. The New Yorker magazine described it as one of the most beautiful towers in the city. The building's exterior has a dramatic, rippling stainless steel facade. It looks as though it's moving like an otherworldly giant metal cloth undulating in the breeze. The tower in New York has those ripples, but they feel a little bit alive.

They feel like folds. Yeah, but they're Bernini folds. So I was looking at Santa Teresa. and sculptures by Bernini and I like the fold that was crisper than the Michelangelo folds which are softer

so I sort of was inspired by the Bernini I think of your mother somehow she worked in a drapery a long time ago I wonder if we originally I think that's true that drapery and

the fold is primitive it comes from being in your mother's arm in the folds of the material. And everybody's been fascinated with the fold. I mean, Michelangelo spent a good part of his life drawing them. Leibniz wrote about it. There's a humanity to it in sculpture.

I mean, when the Schluter, King Phillips, the Bowles' tomb, the mourners, the Sluder mourners, which is before Michelangelo, evoked the feeling of movement of soft in the marble. You felt the humanity in it. So I think it was pretty obvious. I mean, there was a lot of precedent. It's just people don't think of it

when they're making architecture that they should maybe learn from some of that. Learn from art. Is it also what the artist less with and with architects, that there's a sense of freedom to explore? Well, it's a sense of finding yourself and not being afraid to go down past that are intuitive and not proscribed in any way, not things you have to do.

They're things that you look at and want to do, and you know, you cut the wood or put the paint on or put an image on, that was all around. I mean, decooning was lavishing a lot of paint on canvas. And they talk about decoony as an action painter and that your work is sort of action architecture in that sense as a relationship. I don't know. I didn't.

I mean, I was inspired by the Cooning, certainly. I looked at it. I did look at the minimalist, too. I had that. there is a sense of every once in a while of guilt that you can't about the freedom of expression you know and you sort of find

haven in minimalism cut it back do the simple thing just make the box it's safer it's safer yeah it's a safer world. But a safer world isn't a natural habitat for a visionary such as Frank Gary. And while not a big fan of minimalism, he doesn't reject all of it. You know,

there's some beautiful stuff. There's Dad Reinhard and there's Reimann and there's Rothko and there's a lot of that going on. In architecture it was It was Meese, and Corb played at the edges of it. He never really got into minimalism. Corb is better known as Le Corbusier, a Swiss-French architect whose full name was Charles Edward Jean-Henure. Le Corbusier was also a writer and painter, and is considered a pioneer of modern architecture.

One of his most famous designs is La Chappelle de Notre Dame de Ho in the township, of Ranchon, France. It sits high on a hill, and to me, it sort of almost looks like a hobbit's church. It doesn't look like it's of this world. It's just so whimsical and full of curves. It's quite beautiful, but what I found really extraordinary about this church

is the interior light, streaming in the natural light, coming in from various size windows, colored glass windows. So there's all sorts of different colors emanating into the church itself. Very soulful, very original. All qualities you could see Frank appreciating.

He first got interested in Le Corbusier's Ranchon after he completed his architectural degree in California and decided to cross the country and begin another degree at Harvard. The big corb thing for me was Ranchon because I was at Harvard studying city planning and they had a painting show of Corbs. And they must have about 30 paintings that he had done.

And there was a young man in the architecture. I was in city planning, so I was in the wrong school. But there was an architecture student who came from Corb's studio who worked on Rochelle. He never did anything else. This young man, Jacques Michel, I think. never had worked on anything but Ronsham. And so his studio project at Harvard in architecture, well, he did Ronschamp, did a version of it.

But I realized looking at the paintings where the Ronsham came from, and the paintings were not that impressive to me, but the ability to work out his architectural issues with paintings was interesting to me. So it's like instead of drawing it, he was painting it and how he managed to stop all the rectilinear stuff and

cut himself loose and do this tiny little chapel which every time I go see I cry. Why do you think you cry? What makes you cry? Well, it's like the charioteer from Delphi. It's a same sense of emotion. He creates an emotion, emotional response. He was exploring feeling

in concrete and plaster and so on, and he came to it through his paintings. And I love that about it because it made sense to me. If you follow the lineage of his work, it kind of doesn't make sense. There's a kind of a, it's not as free. Freedom is important to Frank Gary. It means being able to trust his intuition, something all great artists have done. Is one of your favorite books, The Poetics of Music, Igor Stravinsky, is that true? Yes. Yes, it is. A friend gave it to me, and I keep it beside my bed. I look at it from time to time. In Poetics of Music, in Stravinsky's book, he writes that to speak of revolution is to speak of a temporary chaos. Now, art is a contrary of chaos.

And what does that mean to you? Because some people say, oh, Gary's work is chaotic. Look at it. But Stravinsky, who you admire, says art is the opposite. You're not trying to be chaotic, are you? No, I think there's a structure to what I'm doing that maybe isn't obvious. maybe it's a microstructure that isn't obvious immediately, but it's personal and it's personal signature,

and it comes out of your, at the end of your drawing, it comes out of your choices, which are intuitive. I'm going to go that way instead of that way. I want it to be red instead of blue. I want it to, I thought Stravinsky was understood a lot of what I'm talking about, what the creative people are talking about. He certainly could verbalize it better than most. What did he understand, do you think? That it was an art, that it was intuitive, that it was, came from somewhere, and it was

probably not exactly explained, you know, because maybe we were. by chance of how your reflexes in your body work when you draw and how you learn things, how your mind works, and it makes it different. You have a signature, and you can follow it and find it. And he did. Is everybody capable of creativity, or do you think some people just for whatever circumstances

came together for them? I would think, Everybody is capable of creativity if they're curious. If they're curious and they try things, then it may not look good and people may not like it and people may hate you for it or it may look stupid. It may not be relevant to the time you're in. It may be a lot of knots and knows about it. But it's yours, so in a sense, I think you have to keep being curious and hungry about it and wanting to keep going.

So somebody said that once, stay hungry. Another book you like is Don Quixote. Why is that? Well, Cervantes understood human nature at the time. understood how at the edge of crazy things could be and that you could find beauty everywhere and that it's accessible to everybody it's not over-intellectualized it's I mean you can do that with it and people have but I think it's it's primitive and sophisticated all at the same time it's I mean it is there's a good reason it's

the most bought novel in the history of literature. But why are people that interested in Don Quixote? Because it's accessible. You can fantasize with him and this dumb horse and his search for this lady and Sancho Panza. But there's so much power. The book-burning episode in the first chapter where they think he's crazy

so they would come in and they want to burn all his books it's so much of what we've seen right in real life we're seeing it now in America this attack on humanity anyway something about Cervantes

that actually thought of is that he also says it's sometimes yeah it's by chance not by design sometimes things are just by chance yeah well it looks like i mean a lot of stuff is by chance right so uh but then later you realize that after it happens and after you've had time to think about it you then realize that there's a series of events that led you to that conclusion to make to make that move but you don't understand it as you go and if you trust it, which is the big move, is to trust it. And that's the hardest part. A lot of people can't. They need to have all the, to know everything before they go. I think curiosity and trusting what comes out of the curiosity. Your conclusions from

what you were curious about. You know what? I see when I think of all your work and the criticism in the past because you do do different. It's kind of a brave act. It's a brave act to dare and to do something so different, especially in architecture, which has movements and rules sometimes. Yeah, but I think you have to get over the brave act thing.

The brave act is not doing what everybody's doing. So, but what is that? I mean, it's so hollow, it's so nothing. I couldn't do that. That, to me, would be, I would look at that as an insult to the other people. To just do what's the norm sort of at the time and place or something that a group of people decide is the right language, and they call that architecture

and that what you're doing is not considered part of that, therefore it's not architecture. I don't, that doesn't, I don't get interested in that argument.

I mean, I see what comes out of the those groups in that language. I don't see much happening over a 20-year period. A lot of talk, a lot of pontific a lot of self-congratulation, a lot of...

There's one guy doesn't think I'm an architect. He calls me an artist Monkei, and he only likes a certain kind of simple boxes. And it's strange, and he's gone on, and I like the guy too, I have fun with him, but he just can't get over it. I'm sort of an aberration that he wants to obliterate. If he could do it without having to go to jail, he'd do it.

Who is this guy? I ain't going to tell you. The person we're talking about is a very smart guy. He's written books. He's well considered in the world of architecture. He's sought after to help choose architects for projects. And he does. And a lot of the projects that are considered top-of-the-line architecture

he facilitated had children, but he's got a narrow little culture and somehow I think it's the way he talks about it. You know, some people have this way of commanding

respect for the sound of their voice and the... Not much play, a lot of seriousness. He could be what? He could be saying shit and they wouldn't know, you know. So which he does

can I ask you one last question before we go today what do you think of overall of the state of architecture you worry about it but then you look at I haven't just happened to see the Edward R. Murrow interview with Frank Lloyd Wright

somebody ran it on a station somewhere and I was watching it And Moreau said to him, Mr. Wright, you've said you're the world's greatest living architect. Mr. Wright said very calmly. He said, no, I've never said that. He said, well, Mr. Wright, people say you're the greatest living architect. And Mr. Wright looks at him and says, well, you know, I look around.

I don't see much. I think that. I think that's more like it, you know, that there isn't a lot like in any field. You know, there's some great artists at this particular time. There's a lot of people making art. How much of it will survive, you know, and be Rothko and Picasso. A percentage of it will.

but and you don't know where you fit in it you know 10 years after I'm gone I could be some that guy that doesn't like me could have a few acolytes who erased me from history do you know what's going to happen the people rise up and say no I don't think so I don't think architecture is that coveted by the general public. In Bilbao, they do. I think in Bilbao, the city's changed completely for the first time they have their own identity. If I run into people from Bilbao anywhere, they just come running after me. So it's a wonderful feeling. On Ideas, you've been listening to The Rebel Architect, part one of our series, Master of His Own Design,

Conversations with Frank Gary. The series was originally produced in the summer of 2017 by Ideas producer Mary Link, who had the rare opportunity to interview the Canadian-born architect over a couple of days. To see videos of Frank Gary at his online, office in Los Angeles. You can go to our website, cbc.ca.ca slash ideas. Technical production, Dave Field and Emily Carvezia. Lisa Ayuso is the web producer for ideas. Our senior producer

is Nicola Luxchich. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas. And I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.