Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Remembering Frank Gehry: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1815

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

In this 1815th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike remembers Toronto-born architect and designer Frank Gehry with special guest Jim Shedden. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, RetroFestive.ca and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Legendary architect and designer Frank Gary passed away Friday at the age of 96. Jim Sheddon, you got to meet and work with him. I'm very interested in this and your memories. of Frank, and I'm going to listen closely, as you remember, the late great Frank Gary. Tell me about this. Yeah, it was a real honor, and I kind of knew it at the time, but, you know, as time goes by, it kind of becomes even clear. Like, I was aware that he was, you know, perhaps the greatest living architect.

But again, as time went on and his accomplishments, you know, built, that became, clearer and clearer. And then my, you know, that kind of, you know, even though I was, wasn't playing like a major role with him or anything, I was, you know, just, it was, it was over many years. I was exposed to him and his studio, their working practice, and so on. And it, uh, it, it seems like a privilege, looking back. Um, when I learned a lot, too, because I, I was working at a company called Bruce

Mow Design. And when I started working there in 1998, they were well underway with a work on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is one of the undisputed kind of masterpieces of Frank Gary. But it seemed like it was never going to get done. You know, we were doing signage for a parking garage. And it just seemed like the actual project wasn't going to get built. But it did.

And when it did it, you know, it kind of blew people away. but, and then we were also working at that time on a, on a project that didn't get built, which was the Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola memorabilia in Elizabeth Town, Kentucky. That was for these bottlers who had the largest collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia in the world. And it was a super cool project, but for whatever reason, they decided not to pursue it. And then as time went on shortly after that, actually, suddenly we found ourselves working on a whole pile of Gary projects. They were just, you know, some of which, you know, came to pass and some of which did not. But, you know, I'm talking to you from one of them right now, the Art Gallery of Ventario renovation, which, you know, it's funny.

before I went to Bruce Mao, I was working at the AGO, and then I was at Bruce Mow working on the AGO, and then I came back to the AGO. So kind of, I saw it. But when we were there, we worked for both the architect and the client and the donor, and we saw all kinds of aspects of that project. These things are, architecture is very complicated, as you can imagine. I have questions, Jim, as you can imagine. So, firstly, you worked at Bruce Mow Design. Like, is this a whole part of your life we didn't dive deep into during your previous Toronto Mike episodes?

I think that might be true. Yeah, I worked there for 12 years from 1998 to 2010. But you're not an architect. No, I'm not an architect or a designer, but I was a client when I was at the AGO. And I just got to, I got to know them in that world and, you know, they're pretty multifaceted. And they were looking for, you know, there was room for someone like me there. It's just someone who was curious and engaged and could get shit done. But, you know, I have to say, working in a place like that and working on projects like this,

the um imposter syndrome it can be can be pretty strong so uh sometimes i'll look back and i think well you know i managed you know a lot got done and then other times i just think what what the fuck were they thinking inspiring me you know but well welcome to my world imposter syndrome it's like oh wait a minute i think they got they got the wrong number here but uh apparently they're looking for me but so what exactly so you just you ended up at bruce maw design you're there for 12 years, it looks like. And I guess if we go back before that,

maybe tell me how did you first become aware of Frank Gary? Yeah, just, you know, when the power plant art gallery opened down at Harborfront Center, I'm pretty sure one of the first shows, if not, there were two shows that opened it. One was

on Toronto and one was a traveling show from the Walker Art Center on Frank Gary. And so I went to see that. And I was just beginning to think about architecture. And funnily enough, part of that was from these zone publications that Bruce had started working on. The first thing he ever did was something called Zone 1-2, the contemporary city. The first thing he did is a solo designer. And that's where I really, I came out in 1985, and that's where I first got some sense of contemporary contemporary architecture. And, you know, in the mid-80s, you know, part of me thinks that the

80s were the worst period of architecture in the history of the world. And I can point to a lot of examples. But it was also an exciting time for architects who were working against that. I mean, I think there was like a tabular rasa. And in a way, there was no one who demonstrated to that more than Frank Gehry. Like, he, he didn't, you know, there were a lot of things he didn't have to contend with. You know, he didn't, you know, modernism was done

and it was great. And he, you know, learned a lot from it. But there's, there was no point in continuing to be Mies van derro or Frank Lloyd Wright or Le Corbusier. That's on the one hand. And then there was some early, ideas of what post-modernism might be, but a lot of that was just about kitsch and ornamentation and all that. But with Frank, it was about, you know, a lot of things, but one thing

was about liberating materials to create new architectural forms that were, that were more in line with sculpture, but also were great buildings. They were not just, you know, there were lots of architects who created, you know, buildings that were primarily sculptural, but, you know, failures as the actual functional buildings. Right. But, you know, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is a great concert hall. You know, it sounds great.

It's a great place to visit. It has a beautiful effect on the city. built, you know, I haven't actually been to Bilbao in Guggenheim, his most famous building, but the, you know, the effect it had on the city was, was monumental. So, so he's able to kind of, you know, bring all those things together at the same time. And then he embraced, to do all of this, he embraced computer software that was not being used on the whole, in the architectural field at the time. One of them being Katia, which was

like a database software that was used in the aerospace industry. And it allowed for more precise engineering of materials and forms. And it was pretty I mean, I was kind of blown away.

The stuff was like totally beyond me. And You know, when you see it in action, you're like, I really hope they know what they're doing. I'm surprised to learn something might be beyond you. Like, this is encouraging to me. Well, I mean, you're quite the Renaissance man, all over the place.

Now, okay, so let me just bring it back to, well, you mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright. I think if you said to me, Mike, name all the architects you can, okay? And I should preface this by saying, recently I've started producing a show, for a gentleman named Nick Iienes and it's called Building Toronto Skyline and we've had a few architects on that podcast and Nick was trained as an architect

now he does building development with Fusion Corp but I have met some architects and it's always fascinating to hear from them but if you said to me name some architect so you mentioned Frank Lloyd Wright and that's a name I know from the Simpsons

okay so he was name checked in a song Apu sings on the Simpsons. But I'm going to play, if you don't mind, for 90 seconds. I'm going to play some Frank Gary on the Simpsons. I'm pretty sure Frank Gary is the only architect

that ever got a cameo on the Simpsons. So let's just listen to this. 82 seconds. Here we go. Great. We ask Frank Gary to build us a concert hall. Bill. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill Bob, Bill.

Snoopy, stationary. Dear Mr. Gary, would you please build a concert hall for our town? We may not be the biggest city or the prettiest, but we were the first city in America to abandon the metric system. Frank, Gary, you're a genius. Behold, the new Springfield Concert Hall! Oh! And none of this would have happened, if not for a letter I received from one little girl.

I wrote that letter! You wrote I was the bestest architect in the world? Well, aren't you? All in favor of building a $30 million screw you to Shelbyville? Aye! Get off my masterpiece, you punks. I'll call your mothers. Yo, Frank Geary, like curvy linear forms much?

That's how famous Frank Geary was, you know? Yeah, that's a big deal, right? Yep, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean, the next most famous architect. to someone else that we worked with as well, Rem Koolhoffs, but he's nowhere near as famous. So it's like, it really is all about Gary. And it's partly because of those signature forms.

Like, you know, Frank is something, but there's, you know, some people, if they saw Bill Bauer, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, they'd be able to say, oh, that's Frank Gary, you know. And then he carried that over into furniture and jewelry and all, kinds of other things that were also all about liberating form and materials. Is it safe to say he was the first Starkitect?

That's my feeling, although it was sort of all happening at once. I feel that Bilbao was the beginning. That was 1997. But then around that same time, you had, Leibskin's Jewish Museum I say Jewish Museum Do I mean a Holocaust Museum? Anyways, in Berlin

and that was a kind of ooh-ah moment as well and really is only by some people's opinion the only successful building he really built but you started to see things

in the late 90s and in the early millennium, and everyone kind of chasing that in the cultural sphere, as they still do. There's still lots of, you know, multi-hundreds of million dollar projects. Although things are getting more realistic, I think. But, yeah, I mean, I think he kind of...

And, you know, there's... And working on these projects, you can kind of see just the transformative effect they could have. So one project we worked on was the Panama Museum of Biodiversity. And it, you know, it wasn't one of his bigger projects in a way. But, you know, we developed the, at Bruce Maudesign, we developed the exhibition. we developed the exhibition strategy for it. And, you know, it has played a huge effect on transforming the Panama economy and the, you know, tourism there and so on.

So that's one that doesn't even come up in conversation a lot, you know. But whereas others are more, you know, I don't like, I don't actually love all of the buildings, but I like, you know, there's a, but I, I love, I love most of them that I've seen, I've seen, you know, I've been to lots of them. And when I'm there in person, it's always, you know, I'm usually in, in awe. But, uh, there's, uh, there's one building he built, uh, near the High Line in New York, and we worked on it, uh, for the IAC headquarters for Barry. Diller and it's like this white glass building that was originally going to be titanium and we

designed what was at the time the largest um um you know uh to what can i say you know tv display because of the wrong words here it was um you know in new york you can only have you know uh exuberant signage in Times Square. So once you're outside of Times Square, you can't really have anything. But this was inside, and you can see it from outside the building. And it was kind of a, you know, a daring move in a way. But to be honest, I've never loved that building. It just reeks of money and arrogance to me. And it may be because I met Barry Diller many times. And he just kind of struck me as that. And I think it could have been a better building. But, you know, that's like, maybe that's the only one that I don't like.

Well, okay, so Frank Gary, born here in Toronto. Yep. But there aren't a lot of, so I know that there's this Mervish Gary, it's a two-tower mixed-use building complex called Forma that, where the towers were designed by Frank Gary. So, but other than that, and the fact you pointed out, you actually work at the art gallery of Ontario. Of course, the new facade there was Frank Gary.

But is there anything else in Toronto that we can point to that was Frank Gary? So more than the facade, by the way. Oh, yeah. Tell me. Tell me. The AGO was something called transformation. And it was a total renovation of the galleries. And new galleries for European art and the ship model galleries.

And then the rear facade of titanium blue and then the front facade. saw that looks like a hockey visor that is a beautiful gallery inside and beautiful galleries for you know, the Thompson Canadian collection and all that. So there was actually a lot more to it. And then also the winding staircases that were kind of are in Walker Court now and on the exterior of the building. So it was a it was a big project. But other than that, And then, yeah, there are these big projects with Mervish. Forma is one of them, but I believe, and that one is actually under construction. Yeah.

And that's going to be like an 84 story tower and a 74 story tower. But I think there's going to be, in theory, we'll see how it goes, but more, at least one more tower on King Street, maybe two, I could be wrong, that are mixed use, residential hotel, et cetera. Forma would also include facilities for OCD and the art school and Mervish's art collection. But other than that, in Toronto, no, the closest there's a winery

in Niagara a modest project and then there were a number of people trying to do

projects with him that ranged from Holy Blossom Temple to you know

I think I probably signed non-disclosure agreements with these things so whatever

you've already said too much Mr. Shedin so Holy Blossom Temple, Bathurst, JCC, I can't even remember them all now, but there were, there were a number of Toronto, and Maple Leaf Gardens, actually, there was a period before it became the Loblasmatomy,

there was a sense of what should we do here, and Frank had some, you know, interesting ideas to what to be done, although his involved demolishing it, because it was limited what you could do with a building like that and besides make it a hockey rink and his idea was to make it a maple leave garden down below and then build like a canopy

above it and so there would be a park and some kind of use of building above well I'm going to guess you know destroying the facade of that building is a non-starter I'm sure that's a historical site

was a non-starter I mean he talked about it you know, when he was working on the AGO too, you know, he said, you know, for the money you have and for what you want to do, it would be a lot easier if we could just, you know, you know, bulldoze the building. But you're not going to do that. So we have to think about this in a creative way. And I'm glad that they didn't because there's some important historical, you know, this this is a glomeration of buildings here so

but yeah there were other projects in Toronto that everyone wanted everyone wanted some of the pixie dust at that time the Frank

once he was on the Simpsons it was like we got to get a Frank Gary here let's go yeah exactly that's how you reach dummies like me right you know you got to get on the Simpsons Yeah, he just, it was incredibly productive, though. It was, he had quite a machine.

Like, there were, I think, a few hundred people working for them. And in this, you know, pretty cool studio in Playa del Rey. It seemed like in the middle of nowhere in California. And he would literally do what you imagine. He would say, you know, we'd have some paper and just say, you know, well, well, I'm thinking of something like this, you know, and then, and then people go, okay, I kind of get that. And then there'd be people grabbing that right away, photographing it and drawing it and, you know, making 3D models of it. And so when it's coming back to him and he'd say, no, no, no, I meant, I meant to be more like that, you know? And it was, it was incredible to watch the process. and to watch this team of people who knew how to respond and turn these things into reality. And that's many, you know, that's early days

before you go into, you know, all the drawings and the engineering. And he also had great engineers that he worked with because obviously he had to have great engineers to do the things that they pulled off. Okay, so you just mentioned you've been to Playa del Rey I'm assuming multiple times. So could you tell me anything about actually, you know, your time spent with Frank Gary?

So obviously you worked with him and everything. But what about the man himself? Did you have any time with him? Yeah. And he would come to our studio in Toronto as well. I mean, he was a little gruff, you know. But, you know, pleasant enough. never

I mean I think I saw him get angry but I it wasn't angry the way Rem Coolhouse could be angry like throwing things at you and having a meltdown that's good

Frank was good but yeah you know I mean it was somewhat intimidating again as someone you know there I was often there representing the studio

and Bruce wasn't always there So it was just, you know, sometimes it was just our team. And although I, in some ways, was the least skilled person there, I was in some ways trying to be the most adult person there, trying to, like, listen to things and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, just, just, you know, to answer the clue phone, you know, and, and, um, and, but, uh, I'd never been to L. LA before I we you know and so you know for the first many trips we've you know we had other clients in LA but for the first few times it was just the Gary office and we'd fly down and go to the Marriott Hotel in Marina del Rey and go to the cheesecake factory at the base and you know at

the base of the building and and there was you know we didn't have a car or anything so we could walk to like a little Mexican place and then I just thought I and also you know this is kind of pre-Google maps right for the most part certainly not on your phone so I don't really know the geography and get up in the morning and take a cab to the studio they'd bring in lunch always from panera bread before it was in Canada so it was kind of novel and it was in Canada and it flopped so And then, you know, maybe Frank would take us out to a steakhouse in Santa Monica where he lived. Or we'd go back to the hotel and go to the Cheesecake Factory, you know. But or visit someone else we knew.

But, you know, eventually one day I realized that we were just, you know, where we were was right near Venice Beach. And I could have just kind of, you know, wandered at night down to the, down to the beach. But, yeah, it was, there were, yeah, there were, it was, it was good. There were a lot of really brilliant people there that I'm, as I said, I learned a lot from them and, you know, forgot, forgot how much I learned from them until I heard that Frank died. And then it was like, oh, yeah, there was George Metzger and Craig Webb and all these people who were, who were incredible. and some of them probably still work there

and some of them moved on. So obviously when you were working with Bruce, you were working with Frank there for what? That's 12 years. And then you mentioned you've been spending the last 15 years working in a major Frank Gehry building at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Do you remember your final project with Frank?

Yeah, it didn't go well. well um it was uh it was big um there were some big projects uh that didn't that didn't go well for one reason or another you know the one of the final ones before the final one was we were working on uh kind of reimagining sax fifth avenue and uh it was kind of funny because they they didn't want to um you know they had big ideas about what working with friends Frank Gary would be, but they didn't really want to pay his bill and the bill to actually do what he was proposing. And retail just kind of works like this. You kind of put it up, you get it, you take it down, right? And I remember getting a text or an email from one of the partners

there who said to me, you know, when I can't afford to shop at Sacks, I go to, I go to Target. In other words, you know, they can't afford Gary. So, so that didn't work out. And it was disappointing because I found it kind of interesting. But then the very last project was it was like a competition for a aquarium in Santosa Island off of Singapore for this developer, Saul Kirtzner, who had done, I don't know, one, you know, one of those big ones in Barbados or Bahamas or whatever. And really, none of us on the team were into it. I mean, it's not that we weren't into the aquarium, but the idea of being, we weren't into casinos, right? And that's what it was. Like, is in an aquarium as an alibi for producing a casino, uh, where billions of dollars could be

made. Um, so we tried to get into the earnestly into the whole aquarium side and what we could do with it and all that and um and we you know we we went to see some cool aquariums like in uh um um in california and all that but but this was not that kind of aquarium like this was like this was going to be you know anyways frank wasn't really into it to be quite honest and he he basically gave he he said i'll do it as long as your team and Greg Lynn's team, Greg's a cool architect in Los Angeles, if you guys do the heavy lifting. And, you know, Bruce was not focused on it. I don't know how to have any other way to put it.

And I think the rest of our team were not really, we just weren't coming up with the stuff. And it wasn't good enough. And we weren't really. It wasn't really our language, you know? But there was a lot of money on the table. And Frank was angry at us. So that was the end. Well, that was it.

So you leave Bruce Mao Design in 2010, and that's a whole, even though that feels to me like it was a couple years ago, apparently I'm told that's 15 years ago. So over the past 15 years, obviously you mentioned what Frank did that building that you're working the work there that's major work from Frank Gary

but like would you from like periodically think something we could see something that would make you think of Frank I mean this was the star architect that you were around for you know 12 years like what were your thoughts of Frank the past 15 years in our building like just in Jim Shedon's head

in Jim Shedin's heart like I'm just curious because you just learned of course on Friday you learned Frank Gary passed away. Lived to be 96 years old. That's a pretty good run there. But I'm just wondering in the last 15 years when Frank Geary would enter your mind or your heart. Yeah, a few years ago,

I went to L.A. with my family, including my mother-in-law, and I made everyone go to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. We didn't see anything, but I just said you've got to come walk around it. Like, you're not, like, trust me. You have to go see it. And so that was exciting and hadn't been there for a number of years.

So it, it, you know, yeah, he's in a way always on my mind. The, you know, I was in Spain a few years ago in, um, um, um, Barcelona. And there's this, you know, Olympic pavilion and this fish sculpture that he did. I don't know when, but fairly early on. And it's, I should know, if I knew my Olympics, I would know for the Barcelona Olympics. It was very cool. And I wasn't really, it's funny because I knew he did it, but then I wasn't looking for it.

And then we just were walking along the beach and saying, oh, there's this Frank Gehry. And it was really super cool. And then I realized we were, you know, we, We could have gone to Bilbao, but it was a six-hour train ride, and we weren't there long enough. We'll do that another day. But then other times, too, same thing, you know, just being in Minneapolis for work, just, you know, meeting people at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. And there's a museum that he designed there and a great, you know, some great buildings. that again it's they've been by surprise i just haven't really i haven't really like just

kind of stumbled on them and then you never there's no never it's it's like seeing a claus oldenberg sculpture you kind of go well that's a that's a that's a badminton birdie like this it could only be claus oldenberg you know um they were they were close by the way i think kind of he had good relationships with a lot of major artists and so like Richard Sarah and Oldenberg and many others

so there was a lot of cross-pollination so by the way the Barcelona Summer Olympics were 1992 yeah it's the sandwich people forget it because Seoul you remember

because it was 88 and that's when Ben Johnson got stripped of his world record. And then 96, you remember, because Donovan Bailey wins in Atlanta. But in 92, that was the Barcelona one. Right, right. Well, if you're ever there, it's really cool. And also, you should, Barcelona is just really a super cool city anyway. Well, speaking of cool cities, have you ever been to the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris?

I have not. And that's one of his major. major buildings for sure. So I'd like to go there. Yeah, there's some things I've not, I mean, there are many that I haven't seen that that would be great to do that. Well, this was great.

Like, I'm just glad we could connect and chat for a half an hour about the late great Frank Gary and you were the perfect FOTM for this job because I didn't even know about those 12 years working at the Bruce Mao. That's great perspective you bring to this whole thing. So thank you for doing this with me. Well, thank you for having me.

I have to say, yeah, it was nice to be able to do this on Zoom. However, you don't get lasagna this way. So, Palma's lasagna. Speaking of Palma, you know, I was going to keep, I was, my thought was, okay, you're remembering somebody who passed away Friday, let's keep the ads off. this and just do it. But I will say it was great to see you at Palma's Kitchen just, what was that, like 10 days ago

or whatever at TMLX-21. I love seeing you there. Yeah, it was great. Yeah. It was a very, it was unbelievable how many people were there and the energy and I don't know. I don't know what you're going to do. You're going to have to move it to. Scotia Bank Arena.

I just want you to know though I'm just as excited maybe more so to see Jim Sheddon in the crowd than I am to see Carla Collins I want you to know that yeah that was good well there are other exciting people there too so well it's funny because when you described Frank

Gary you use these words I took a note you said a little gruff but pleasant enough and I thought you were talking about our friend Alan Swig for a moment um well frank frank wasn't

I mean Alan for Alan's more of it that's more of his brand in a way his you know right like I think like crumudgeon yeah I think Frank

he wasn't quite as uh I don't know it's not not as uh not as profoundly crumudgingly um

um but uh you know the thing is if you're the if you're a creative person like alan or like frank then you're not you're not really a curmudgeon right like i think if you make things you still you still have faith you still believe there's value in doing those things and so you might have this you know exterior but you know at the end of the day what do you what are you doing you're making movies you're

making buildings, you, you really believe there's, there's value in creativity. So, this is the great paradox. Yeah. So, yeah. So wise, such sage information from Jim Sheddon. So, Jim, we do at some point, your next appearance, you've got to be in this basement, man. I'll hook you up with the beer. I'll hook you up from Great Lakes.

I'll hook you up with the pasta. We'll do it right. But thanks for jumping on Zoom, talking about Frank Gehry with me. All right. It's a pleasure. Okay. Thank you. You're going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be I'm going to be.

I'm going to So, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be.