Frank O. Gehry of Santa Monica, Calif., has been selected as the 12th Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. He is the sixth American to receive the prestigious prize since it was established by The Hyatt Foundation in 1979. Architects from six other countries have also been so honored in the past decade.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established to honor a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision and commitment that have produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through architecture. With many of its procedures and rewards modeled after the Nobel Prizes, laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize receive a $100,000 grant, a formal citation certificate and medallion.Having just celebrated his 60th birthday, Gehry has received considerable fame in recent years, due in part to some of his more unusual projects making use of materials such as chain link fencing, cardboard and corrugated metal in unorthodox ways.
Gehry's career was launched with the design of the highly regarded Los Angeles landmark, the Danziger Studio/Residence in 1964. A retrospective exhibition of his work, organized by the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis, Minn., toured major museums over the past two years, drawing record crowds.
Gehry has received more than 25 national and regional AIA Awards, the Brunner Prize and many others. He is a sought-after lecturer for museums, architecture societies and universities. In addition to his building designs, he has become widely known for his cardboard furniture concepts and for designing museum exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Jay A. Pritzker, president of The Hyatt Foundation, announced the 1989 choice of the jury, saying, "The great body of work of architect Frank Gehry, which includes residences, museums, libraries, schools, shops, concert halls, restaurants, all manner of public buildings, and even a hay barn, demonstrates a range of styles that defies classification, but certainly warrants recognition for his contribution to the art of architecture."
Bill Lacy, secretary to the jury, reported the formal citation from the selection panel, that reads as follows: "In an artistic climate that too often looks backward rather than toward the future, where retrospectives are more prevalent than risk-taking, it is important to honor the architecture of Frank O. Gehry.
"Refreshingly original and totally American, proceeding as it does from his populist Southern California perspective, Gehry's work is a highly refined, sophisticated and adventurous aesthetic that emphasizes the art of architecture.
"His sometimes controversial but always arresting body of work has been variously described as iconoclastic, rambunctious and impermanent, but the jury, in making this award, commends this restless spirit that has made his buildings a unique expression of contemporary society and its ambivalent values.
"Gehry's architecture reflects his keen appreciation for the same social forces that have informed the work of outstanding artists through history, including many contemporaries with whom he often collaborates. His designs, if compared to American music, could best be likened to jazz, replete with improvisation and a lively, unpredictable spirit.
"Always open to experimentation, he has as well a sureness and maturity that resists, in the same way that Picasso did, being bound either by critical acceptance or his successes. His buildings are juxtaposed collages of spaces and materials that make users appreciative of both the theatre and the backstage, simultaneously revealed."