Frank O. Gehry
Wolf Prize Laureate in Architecture 1992
Frank O. Gehry
Award citation:
“Creating architecture as art and sculpture, he embodies the fight for liberation destroying dogma, principle and method”.
Prize share:
Frank O. Gehry
Denys Lasdun
Jorn Utzon
Although each deserves the prize alone, it was felt that their creative stature would be identified best through comparison; even through the actual contrast of diverse and opposite qualities. Three men, three leaders, three permanent references in the wavering research of modern architecture. Humanly, psychologically and in their forms, they are very different. But they have one thing in common: the consistency of looking for ever extended fields of freedom.
Frank O. Gehry receives and transforms stimuli, but he also provokes them. All the world looks at him because, among many qualities, he has those of certitude and conflict. Gehry is there to destroy dogma, principle and method. Rather than freedom, he embodies the fight for liberation, no matter what it costs in terms of social relations or professional interest. Doing or undoing, constructivism or deconstructivism: his behaviour is an example, a light for all.
Three architects, three architectural languages, three different positions in space, time and architectural tradition – but three reminders as well in a period which suffers from the facile reuse of images, that the art of architecture can aspire to qualities existing well beyond the range of passing fashion – qualities that enhance use, transform construction, intensify meaning and liberate the mind.
