On behalf of my colleagues on the UC
Santa Cruz foundation board,
welcome to the 2013 foundation forum.
This is an annual tradition and a
wonderful opportunity
for you to hear from one of this year's
distinguished awardees.
Frank Gehry, one of the world's leading
architects
will be honored this evening with the
foundation metal
at the founder celebration dinner. 
This year's forum will be a conversation with Frank Gehry led by Paul Goldberger,
a contributing editor at Vanity Fair
whom the Huffington Post has called
the leading figure in architecture
criticism.
From 1997 to 2011, Mr. Goldberger served
as the architecture critic for the new
yorker magazine, where he wrote
the magazine's celebrated skyline column.
In 1984, he was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize
for distinguished criticism, the highest
award in journalism.
Mr. Goldberger is currently writing
an authorized biography of Mr. Gehry and
Mr. Goldberger will do the honors
of introducing our special guest. 
Please join me in welcoming, Mr. Frank Gehry and Mr. Paul Goldberger.
Thank you very much. It's wonderful to be here.
I've been asked to not jump right
into our conversation but to give you
a little bit of background on Frank
Gehry which I'm happy to do before
before we begin. Not a lecture but sorta of
if you remember that old thing from
Saturday Night Live called, 
"The Five-Minute University."
This will be the the five minute of University
of Frank Frank Gehry.
He is a unique figure in contemporary culture, the only architect in our time
to be widely admired by both critics
and the general public and has almost
single-handedly
transformed contemporary architecture.
His Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao Spain which Phillip Johnson called, 
"the greatest building of our time."
Managed to turn Bilbao rundown industrial city into a major international tourist destination
probably the greatest example of culture led economic development in modern history.
It wasn't a short-lived phenomenon
either.
In the summer of 2010 as the building
approached its 13th birthday,
a panel of more than 50 of the world's
leading architects critics an
architectural historians
convened by Vanity fair declared the
building the most important
erected anywhere in the world since
1980
and voted Gehry the most important
architect in the world.
Here's the atrium. 
His impact though is not limited to Bilbao, his Walt Disney hall
in Los Angeles a concert hall for the LA
Philharmonic reenergized live
performance of classical music
at a time when audiences elsewhere were
disappearing.
His Aerospace Museum near the campus of USC
his Alma mater in downtown LA
shows you some the beginnings of his
style.
This is one of my favorite Gehry's buildings, the Wintin Guesthouse in Minnesota.
He was exploring materials
shapes and the idea of a house
as in effect a model village.
We see more of Bilbao and Walt Disney Hall beginning to emerge in this
wonderful museum in Basel.. the outside of
Basel Switzerland for Vitra, the
design company.
Here's one of my favorites in Los Angeles,
The Leola School of Law with that rather 
remarkable thing on the right that manages to be both
abstract and classical at the same time.
Here's the Weissman museum in Minneapolis.
And here is the American center in Paris and then the wonderfully named
Fred and Ginger building in Eastern in Prague
that became a symbol of the Renaissance
the resurgence of Eastern Europe as
his band shell at Millennium Park
in Chicago gave a sense a renewal to the
nation's leading city architecture.
Hes also designed the
tallest apartment tower in New York the
Beekman tower, the 8 Spruce Street of Beacon Street.
and the ruble center for Al Hamizer research in Las Vegas.
He is also, surely the only architect in the world
to ever been the subject of an episode
the symptoms, Simpsons perhaps the
ultimate proof
of the extent to which is entered popular
culture
even as work continues to push the most
advanced
boundaries of architectural expression. 
His ubiquity not to mention his ability to bridge popular and high culture
is almost unprecedented in architecture and is rare in almost any field that is if
David Foster Wallace
worth well-known novelist is John
Grisham
or filled of glass has shot to the top of
the Billboard charts to rival Lady Gaga.
But Gehry's fame in the end emerges out
of his architecture
not his persona. His own house in Santa
Monica
a conventional Dutch colonial that he remade in 1978 to look more or less as if it
had been exploded
and then covered with corrugated metal
and chain link fencing first brought him
significant international attention.
Not only because the striking nature of its
shapes and materials
because the way it seemed at once
like an ordinary house
an extraordinary other-worldly object
the familiar and the unfamiliar visible
together
in constant tension.
His building, here's another view
but his building in Bilbao took these
ideas to a whole new level
a composition of swirling,
curving sheets of titanium, it was like
in various times to a vast
artichoke, a metal rose, and abstract
sculpture
and an exploded version of Frank Lloyd
Wright's original..
original Guggenheim in New York City. In
reality it was none of those things
the Guggenheim Bilbao startling as its appearance was
was the logical culmination of a whole
series of events in Gehry's life. 
He's lived in Los Angeles for more than six decades now.
In the beginning of his career he was more apart of the Los Angeles's art community 
than its architectural one. 
He saw himself as a outsider almost in the architectural world
but there was always a formal, powerful
instinct that were a sculptor sensibility
filtered through an architectural eye.
Bilbao's extraordinary swirling
masses and shapes were actually the
outgrowth of
forms that you've seen a moment ago that
he'd been working on
for a long time, his imagination often
outpaced
the ability of engineers and contractors to figure out how to build the structures he designed.
And so they use software developed for
the aircraft industry
which enables engineers to calculate
with precision
those dramatic and curving forms, without
it
that building could not have been built.
After Bilbao and its great success, Gehry
faced a dilemma rare among architects
a challenge more like that of a writer
who'd been celebrated for
a great novel who
then have to get beyond his own work not
to be trapped in it
to continue to do new and creative things
here's one of the most important
a building that was designed as for
Beijing as the National Art Museum of China.
Extraordinary things being done with
glass here.
The building is almost as if it were a
monumental glass block
 and something much closer to here
this is a model of his design for the
new headquarters for Facebook
Here you see another view of it with a garden on top and enormous single workspace
and parking below.
So the post Bilbao era
for Gehry was a very special and
different kind of challenge as he tried to
do new creative and different things even as the public because as the great success of that
was expecting more of the same for him.
It was a period in which he realizes he once told me
how success is much harder to deal with than failure. 
I think that I see a wonderful moment to ask
Frank if you can join us on stage and
we can begin our conversation.
So, Frank Gehry.
(clapping)
So successes is harder to deal with than failure.
Gehry: Who said that?
You said that.
Gehry: Oh, haha. 
Have you changed your mind?
Well.. you know your perceptions of failure and success change.
If.. you know I had to do that letter to
myself recently for Charlie Rose
and I had a little talk to myself as a kid
but what you're going to get when you.. for the future
and I told myself that you're not gonna
listen anyways so. 
(crowd laughing)
I think that it's hard if you're human
not to be competitive
picture perhaps sibling rivalry it's
hard to
not think that you've been left behind
by somebody
when he should have gotten something its
that's I think that's the human condition
you get it I get everybody gets it.
Whatever I've done has led me to be very comfortable. 
In terms of the status of symbols that the world.. I have a car.
But, so I'm.. I don't know.
I think I have been very successful, I think
and I'm happy about it
and I'll complain anyways.
That's also apart of the human condition, right?
Satisfied, but never (right) 100 percent satisfied
then that becomes complacency which is not so good.
That letter to your younger self
that you did for PBS news began by saying I guess the most important advice I would give to you
is to keep a copy of Dime Quoti and Alice in Wonderland at your bedside, your entire life.
I do. You do? you in fact do keep it..
I do, I have it and whenever I get sorta disgruntled or something, I open the book and read it, read chapters
Servanti was amazing as was Carol. 
I think whether you like it or not we're all in that kinda world.
It's too bad it's called a Tea Party, but.. (aha)
Carol knew where from hes spoke. 
but you do know when you go through the looking-glass you know in your
when you're working on a project and
it's all very serious with programs budget 
and there's ultimately there's
gotta be a kind of a
innocence like that
the kid tells the truth somehow, and
and so it to preserve that in the
process
so that and be able to...
but I do it through architecture.
And to be willing to take the stuff that comes at you for doing that.
Because initially, I mean when I showed
the model of the Walt Disney Concert Hall publicly,
they were called, Broken Crockery. 
When I showed the models of the Bilbao building in Bilbao,
there was a article in the paper, "Kill the American Architect."
That was serious at that time
because it was
at that time that the separatists for
bombing everybody and
it was scary and whenever I got to
public I stood next to the president.
The separatist came around pretty quickly to realize the building was... did so much for the region of Spain. 
well they were looking for an identity
and so it's calm down the separatist
it's amazing the building
could participate in that game, but it did.
You think the building did..
we know it brought extraordinary economic development to Bilbao.
You think it also brought a degree of political stability? 
well I never claimed to have a recently
a gentleman from faraway
who wants me to do a project, called me.
He is a high Prime Minister type and he said he wanted me to come and 
do what Bilbao did for the politics so
that guy believe it. I don't know.
This guy didn't have to be calling you from Washington DC.
(nooo)
Would not be a bad thing.
Washington DC.
I'm sorry you brought that you brought that up. 
We can move on quickly, we're not here to talk about Washington DC.
But yes okay now,
Now you want to talk, huh?
Washington is a city in which you not yet designed a building
You had a project for the Crockin Gallery of Arts.
Yeah and it's one
I think it's one the best things I've ever
done.
And it was a working drawings
complete
was on budget, contract ready to go and
one board member stopped it. 
Well I think, if I remember correctly the courtroom which was a spectacular beautiful project. 
It wasn't over budget but it was that they discover they didn't really have the money
they thought they did and they told you to designed to.
You didn't do anything wrong except..
I forgot that part.
You didn't do anything wrong except accept their statement at one point that they had "x" dollars and 
when they discover they had half of that "x" dollars.
Yeah.
It didn't happen. Yeah, that's true.
The Eisenhower thing is.. Eisenhower is going on right now
and that's your competition winning entry to do a memorial like the Eisenhower.
So I read a book by Ambrose, was a Eisenhower biographer and
probably everybody knows a lot about Eisenhower but if you don't, read that book.
I just fell in love with this person because when I was when I was in the Army I was in his
3rd Infantry Division 3rd army he was
president
and I remember as
many many might remember that he was
always playing
golf and everybody thought he was not doing much.
and when you read this book and you
realizes accomplishments, their extraordinary.
 And so I entered the competition
and wanted and I thought that was that was it. (Mhm, Right.)
There's all kinds of things that
happened to you after that
including Darrell Ice's committee tripping my records.
Did you expect to win the competition?
No. Okay. Did not. But then why, it's interesting because usually
competitions are entered.. the architects
who enter competitions
not expecting to win are usually young
architects looking for the experience.
(Yeah) You are not in the category of an
young architect looking for experience.
No. I really got into who he was.
- Right okay. 
And I brought him
Robert Wilson who's a theater guy
that does Einstein on the Beach and stuff. Who's also an actor and 
I asked Bob to consult with me and help
me
Because he as an actor, he builds characters and he he understands that.
And I wanted to understand it and to portray the essences of it. 
So I really got into it and the site is terrible and all of the building in Eisenhower.
The department of Education of Public Health, the FAA surround this site and they're not great building.
Through it kind of bad Washington intersection if they want to turn into a park
Anyways, we did it. We're on budget, it's been approved by fine arts
several times now
and national capital Planning Commission
I think. Is Ms. Neapolitan here?
If you could make somehow to the next appointee to the last.
Anyway. 
Getting something bill in Washington DC
is only
slightly less complicated than getting
something built on a
University of California campuses I think
[Paul Goldberger] University of California campus I think actually.
[Frank Gehry] Oh now you're talking [Paul Goldberger] right haha uh
[Frank Gehry] I ain't gonna go there [Paul Goldberger] haha but tell us 
Tell us really quickly what the design cause its not one of the 
Images we showed so uh
[Frank Gehry] it's not okay so there's uh three buildings
And independence avenue and the back end of
Aerospace and so I made a tapestry
Along in front of education
About 75 feet in front of it 
And then one in front of the hills and one in front of uh 
Of a FAA and they sorta form a courtyard of columns 
And I used stround columns 
Sort of echo of classical Washington architecture
The screens uh the idea of tapestries
Comes from the Middle Ages the telling
stories with
With uh on that way and it hasn't been done at this scale
Uh and we found a way of making a tapestry with 
With stainless steel wire
That's quite photographic
I mean I don't want to get it to photographic we're tryna
Have a sense of an artist to it but
The tapestry shows 
Is just creating the environment and and collecting all the
Bits and pieces together and
organize way
And uh it shows Abilene Kansas where where Ike was
Lived he was born there but he lived there
Grew up there and
He's buried there and he talked about Abilene in
All of his speeches almost always
Talked about it
Uh and Abilene is a 150 miles from the
The geographic center of the United States I've been told
I believed 'em
Ah
And so in a way it's bringing
The middle of America to Washington
Where with where there is no representation of it
And a
And then in front of it haha
[Paul Goldberger] Le-le-let's not go there but anyway 
Okay let's say no architectural representation
And leave it at that [Frank Grehry] that's what i meant 
[Paul Goldberger] right ok mhm
[Frank Gehry] uh so uh and then in in the smaller
In the center there's a
Uh block or two blocks like this facing toward the streak
And on on
One of them is Eisenhower's the general 
The famous picture him talking to the troops
Uh the day of the invasion at Normandie
and we found one of those soldiers alive and and have interviewed him
Um
So it was uh the 82nd Airborne
And 101st represented
Uh
And theirs a uh a relief that shows the the landing
And then on that block there's carved into the stone
Uh the, the speeches he gave about that time and then on the other block
Is uh Eisenhower's the president meeting with members of the cabinets
Uh to sign the, I believe the civil rights bill
The-the questions of which
Everything you do has lot of people questioning so you
They not sure it should be civil rights it should be highway should be whatever
So that kind of stuff goes on a
Um
And
So that's it the pushback has been
From a very a conservative
It's a  a startup thing I don't know what
Where they came from
Uh it's it's a group led by a young man who
Calls me in the nihilist cause i wear black shirts
(Crowd laughing)
Uh and that group had a competition for the
Counter competition 
And which Eise-Eisenhower has a
[Paul Goldberger] right [Frank Gehry] one of those a oak leaf things
And and a toga
(Crowd laughing)
Uh
And a in in the last hearing the guy said something about a
I was portraying Ike as a hick
And I said you know
He's from Middle America
And I, young man I think that's un-American what you just said 
(Crowd and Frank Gehry laughing)
so
(Crowd Applauding)
Anyway
You could uh, we don't know if thing is gonna get built or not they've thrown every
Every kind of
[Paul Goldberger] well well well the the recent
Recent unfortunate thing it seems to me is how
Some not all but some of his descendants his granddaughters 
So have made common cause with the classical architecture Taliban
And um and
Because they decided they wanted it
to look more
Like the Lincoln memorial or whatever
And so they've 
I think that kept that argument going it might have died away
If the family hadn't joined in [Frank Gehry] I know I know
That's how it's represent to the press I'm not sure they really want that
I think [Paul Goldberger] okay [Frank Gehry] they really don't want a 
That kind of a memorial. [Paul Goldberger] ok I hope that's true
I hope that that's the case. [Frank Gehry] uh they're really nice people
I have come to like them even though they would like to kill me
But (crowd laughing) um
They Susan Eisenhower's brilliant and uh has a lot of
Reasons for everything but
It it just isn't the way it was set up
I mean I I would agree with her if you could have an Eisenhower uh
Institute like Woodrow Wilson has [Paul Goldberger] right right right
[Frank Gehry] That's probably more interesting than
some blocks of 
Stone and things but
Uh that I I didn't enter competition for that 
[Paul Goldberger] right right right
But also think the quest to continually find new ways
To use architecture to
Honor the past is very important I mean now 
Remember there was a bitter bitter fight about Maya Lin's Vietnam
Veterans Memorial and now it's one of the most admired things in Washington
[Fank Gehry] yeah 
[Paul Goldberger] and yet we don't seem to have learned anything from it
[Frank Gehry] well the Roosevelt memorial took 20 years with family swebles
	
0:27:34.000,0:27:36.780
[Paul Goldberger] and actually that one ended up as a very weak compromise I think
[Frank Gehry] right [Paul Goldberger] yeah very watered watered-down so um
Why don't we come a little closer to this part of the world
Um I was I was actually a suppose to
Move back to the uh slide with the university seal on it but I
Forgot so I'm afraid we still I apologize so we still have Facebook
Up there so let's uh let's talk about Facebook for a moment that was
My mistake but nevertheless lets turn it
To advantage and talk about that for a moment [Frank Gehry] Good mistake
[Paul Goldberger] Um um how did you come to be
Doing, how did you as a
Very distinguished world-renowned architect in his 80's
Come to be doing uh [Frank Gehry] working with a 30-year-old kid
[Paul Goldberger] right right ha-ha-have a 30-year-old kid as your client exactly okay
Right right [Frank Gehry] um well we were
We were introduced through I guess a mutual friend
[Paul Goldberger] mhm [Frank Gehry] um 
And uh
I think uh that the idea of Capital A Architecture
Probably was is, is and was more scary to Mark Zuckerberg
It was it's not his main uh event [Paul Goldberger] right
[Frank Gehry] but he was trying to create something
A cult that has
Fits his culture which is 
Uh hard working, free, free willing, free association
With a lot of people coming and going and
Sleeping at their desks be in in work sessions the last two days
Without stop and kinda searching for 
Uh-new ways to to expand his network uh program
Um and he came to visit my office and he liked that
Because I had such a place uh my my 
[Paul Goldberger] You mean what you keep people 
Working for two days sleep without any sleep and all that ok mhm
[Frank Gehry] Uh exactly like that and [Paul Goldberger] ok
[Frank Gehry] and so he liked my space uh
He had already they already had a design from another 
Architect [Paul Goldberger] mhm
[Frank Gehry] and uh
That architect had four buildings different buildings 
Blocks with offices in it
And a separate parking garage
And when Mark liked what I was doing I said well
We can make one big room 
10 acres
Like my room
And we can lift it off the ground over parking
And show you can park near where he 
You know somebody's down at that end they can park down at that end
And uh 
And we can put a a solar thing on the roof and
Everything would be uh
[Paul Goldberger] mhm 
[Frank Gehry] Very sustainable and all the
Issues that we're
All of us are are seriously involved with  
Uh
And he liked that
Uh and we presented it
To the to his
I guess a five six hundred of his employees
Uh and
We talked about putting a garden on the roof which was
An addition so the I was under budget from the other architect 
Without the garden on the roof
(Laughing)
And the building that he liked better so that was pretty good
And then he wanted he likes walking around
Like uh he does a lot of walking when he talks to people
When he's thinking
Uh very active
Uh
Physically like that and so we talked about
The options for planting on the to make a green roof and then
What would it take to make it a park and it wasn't that bad it's it's
About a 10 percent kick
To the budget
[Paul Goldberger] A public park or just a 
[Frank Gehry] no no no
[Paul Goldberger] a garden for for the Facebook employees
[Frank Gehry] For them and and I was worried that 
Okay you build it would they would they use it they were
They're so intense in their workstations
And we agonized about that 
For a few weeks while we went through the
Staff to make if you know you're going to spend the 
Extra money to make sure it was useable and uh 
They wanted it so that's what we're doing
Uh 
There are openings from in the
Workspace up into the parks so you can 
Walk up around and you're in the park 
From your from where you're working 
Uh and they started construction 
So 18 months from now it'll be there 
[Paul Goldberger] right
You seem to be um almost at pains to be 
Uh
Reminding us that your buildings
Buildings aren't kinda wild and crazy and expensive
That they can be [Frank Gehry] Ok ask how many people in this room think I'm expensive?
(Crowd laughing)
Put up your hand come on tell the truth 
[Paul Goldberger] Yes I think more more than half I would say
[Frank Gehry] yeah well usually the whole thing you know
We've made them self-conscious 
[Paul Goldberger] So you've you've gotten a bad rap you think on that?
[Frank Gehry] Yeah I-I-I've never been over budget with a project
[Paul Goldberger] mhm [Frank Gehry] uh and
Unless the client adds stuff in
[Paul Goldberger] right [Frank Gehry] or some
Cataclysmic circumstance
[Paul Goldberger] mhm 
[Frank Gehry] But uh knock wood
And I I'm proud of that because I think it means you can do stuff
As long as the budget a real when when I'm like the thing in Hamburg
I was offered that job in 
The upper hall the concert hall 
[Paul Goldberger] right
[Frank Gehry] 135 million euros at the time 
It would of cost uh 
500 million euros to build it
Just on the a flat piece a ground let alone on top
[Paul Goldberger] mhm
[Frank Gehry] and a friend of mine was was selecting the architect 
Ha ha and he wanted me to do it 
And I turned it down and the guys got it
Who accepted it are now at uh five times that budget
And it's it's kinda it's gonna be worth it
The building that building they designed is really beautiful
But I wouldn't
I would I would commit suicide if that happened to me
I would even I wouldn't be able to live with live with myself
[Paul Goldberger] Yea you seem to really to want
To make the case that 
Great architecture does not have to break the bank
[Frank Gehry] right I think that's true and
It doesn't have to be uh done by prima donnas
[Paul Goldberger] mhm
[Frank Gehry] It can it can be normal people
And have a normal relationship haha
And build build good stuff, which is
You know for what better for worse that's what I've done
[Paul Goldberger] right right right
I I think another theme if your work if I can
Can say that you've
Um you've consistently designed
Unconventional spaces
But they are not necessarily uh
As you've just been trying to say incredibly expensive or
They're not necessarily disquieting and uncomfortable either
That you seem to be eager to make the point that
Uh
An unusual modern building
Can be as comfortable to be in as a
Convention traditional house
It just reaches that comfort in a different way
[Frank Gehry] well uh
I think that we're making spaces for people that's
[Paul Goldberger] right 
[Frank Gehry] number one priority so
Uh and so I don't 'em want to have to
Stand on their head to look out the window
Which a friend of mine do 
Haha In the building, uh
I think you could engage people
Uh the Walt Disney Concert Hall 
I made the interior of the hall symmetrical
Uh
[Paul Gehry] an un-Gehry-esc thing
[Frank Gehry]  Yea nobody would of thought I'd do that 
Uh
And the models were of of sharron were
Unsymmetrical not symmetrical 
The the the client was interest in 
But I thought my work would be uh 
Challenging let's say and that
So people go in and sit down they
Feel comfortable at least they call it a handrail they can
[Paul Goldberger] mhm
[Frank Gehry] Hang onto and then take their time just
Wonder about the rest of it 
[Paul Goldberger] Right
It's a very voluptuous and rich space 
That is never uncomfortable it seems to me
[Frank Gehry] Well yea the whole issue with
Performing spaces is
The relationship between the performer and the audience so
This thing here is
Preventing us from getting to know each other better
[Paul Goldberger] Should we pull our chairs forward?
Uh
So in the case of a concert hall or in theatre that
That
They are more successful
When that
That feeling of together
Works, especially in a concert hall where
Uh I was on a program like this last week with Esa-Pekka Salonen
The former conductor of LA Phil who was 
Part of my client group when I did the building he was talking about
His feelings getting to the podium and starting to conduct
And uh
Not only the acoustic uh was supportive
He could feel the bass sound bass
Vibration, which was something unusual for him
In the former hall
And then he could feel the audience he could sense the
That he was in touch with the audience
And the orchestra also felt that and played better and the audience responded
Through the air through this magical relationship
You and I have right now
Uh is it's palpable in the concert hall to feel
The inter interrelationship which 
They talk about, the musicians talk about, and he talked about
And uh it makes
Makes for a unique experience and and
people
Wonder about how did that happen 
[Paul Goldberger] right right right
It's much more than just
visibility though [Frank Gehry] right
[Paul Goldberger] I mean they they both sides feel that they're in a special place
[Frank Gehry] right [Paul Goldberger] together and having 
[Frank Gehry] yea [Paul Goldberger] right right
[Frank Gehry] and that really work so it was interesting hearing
Esa-Pekka talk about it cause [Paul Goldberger] mhm
Uh I hadn't heard it
[Paul Goldberger] When I think in its 10 years
this month I guess since it opened right or last month
[Frank Gehry] I think today 23rd what's today? 
[Paul Goldberger] 23rd uh 23rd of October that's next week
So
[Frank Gehry] okay [Paul Goldberger] okay so where it is it is
Nine years and fifty-one weeks old at this point
Um and
It seems to have been 
Pretty widely accepted now instead of the the
Preeminent concert hall of modern times 
[Frank Gehry] So guess what they're doing they're building a subway under it
[Paul Goldberger] yes you told me that so what's that going
[Frank Gehry] I don't know it could be devastating actually
Scary
[Paul Goldberger] Is there any possibility of a
[Frank Gehry] You know that the this concert hall is built next to a
Music school covert school and the
And uh Cal Arts Theatre and
And those things were in place 8 years ago when the
The plan for the MPA was
Uh decided [Paul Goldberger] mhm
I can't imagine what they were thinking putting it
Right in the middle of those three entities
[Paul Goldberger] Well there think it was convenient and forgetting
The fact that subways make vibration and noise
I guess
[Frank Gehry] Yeah
[Paul Goldberger] Or maybe there were thinking in fact nobody in LA 
Takes the subway so it doesn't matter
Its something i don't know
(Laughing)
Perhaps that was the thought [Frank Gehry] no
[Paul Goldberger] I don't know
[Frank Gehry] That's interesting
But you know we'll make sure it doesn't screw up
[Paul Goldberger] I mean at this point the building is so
Uh deeply respected that it would be like 
Tinkering with the cathedral it seems to me
[Frank Gehry] the director said it would be an 
International disgrace so she keeps saying that so I think 
[Paul Goldberger] good good good [Frank Gehry] that'll uh preclude 
[Paul Goldberger] good good good
[Frank Gehry] The bad things from happening
[Paul Goldberger] Lets go back to something we began to talk about a
Moment ago when we talked about comfort uh
What what do you think sort of defines your work is it a
A continual quest
For new things
Uh is it a
Response to 
Particulars in a different way to clients to programs
Um you said
You design spaces for people uh
Of course that's true but
Every architect at least claims that he's designed no one 
No one's gonna say I designed faces 
That are hostile to people uh even if someone them are
Hostile to people no one nobody
So everyone will claim that so what makes your actually
[Frank Gehry] well so look [Paul Goldberger] achieve that [Frank Gehry] look at our cities
[Paul Goldberger] right [Frank Gehry] which are antithetical to that idea
[Paul Goldberger] yes yes yes
[Frank Gehry] and that's 99 percent of what the built environment right?
[Paul Goldberger] right
[Frank Gehry] So they may say that but they're not doing it
[Paul Goldberger] mhm mhm [Frank Gehry] Um
 And i don't understand why 
It doesn't cost any extra to do it
Uh
What makes it happen
Well
I think for me the different
Clients are are a 
Big factor in my not repeating myself cause I spent time
Trying to understand them there needs and
That
Uh uh makes me 
Uh
Uh come back with with design or ideas
That are in support of that
The purpose of the mission of the building
Uh
a and then try to find
Ways within the site 
The time I mean
Times are times are changing each each
New building is like five years later from the
Uh [Paul Goldberger] right [Frank Gehry] so the
The world is changing and
I try to live in the time I'm in
Uh
And the technology with it so you
To
Build
Uh a hysteresis building
Seems like like failure seems like saying well
Uh I don't know how to respond to the present
[Paul Goldberger] mhm 
[Frank Gehry] And so I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna give up and repeat the past
Uh 
Having said that there's some damn good
buildings, built by architects who do repeat past
[Paul Goldberger] right right right
[Frank Gehry] Uh so
I just think if you’re a university and you’re uh
I remember having this talk with Larry Summers at Harvard
He said "why"
We were we were working on the expansion of the Harvard campus
He said why wouldn't I build everything like 
Like the Business School everybody likes it [Paul Goldberger] right right 
And it's a Bob Stern historian so he can 
Now I I like that building very much 
I said the only reason is your
University preparing people for the
future and you're telling 'em
That they should live in the past 
And if you're comfortable with that go for it haha
(Crowd laughing and clapping)
[Paul Goldberger] He with not force for architectural
Ambition at Harvard in his time their I think it's true
that there [Frank Gehry] well he is now interested in architecture 
I talk to him now a lot but
Different different time 
[Paul Goldberger] right right right um
We'll we'll continue in a moment but let me just take a
Break to remind all view that um
You're welcome to write questions 
Down on the cards that I think were given out and uh
If you have one
Hold it up and uh
Someone will be going up and down the aisle and will uh
Uh, bring them up here and we'll
Open the conversation to all of you in uh
In the next few minutes um 
Since we're talking about
A new things you've made technology a very very
Important part of your practice uh
Your firm was the first to integrate
Uh
Software designed for the aerospace industry
Into the making of buildings and
Uh
You've often said that
Bilbao could never have have the engineers would still 
Be sitting there with their slide rules
Trying to figure out how to build it
If uh 
It hadn't been possible digitally 
Um can you talk a little bit about 
About that and the role of technology in the creative process for you
[Frank Gehry] So at Bilbao is when I discovered for the
Time I used the tech the
Technology that came from that's so
And and uh we got
and and we got a,
in it, in Spain so as foreign contractors.
And, uh, we got the steel bits were 
six bidders and spread was one percent
and it was eighteen percent
under budget.
Uh, when you get a spread, of, it's the type
you can feel comfortable taking
and uh, so the tool's uncanny and kind of like, precise. 
What I'm interested in is 
the profession of architecture has 
marginalized itself by 
over-protection, self over-protection in a way
of not wanting to take responsibility.
Not realizing that they had the tools
to take responsibility,
and show the the construction industry
has become lopsided. 
The contractors- if there's contractors in the audience,
you may want to leave now.
I'm about to insult you.
There, they have become more powerful
because the owner you know, the void is, I
do it like this
So that's the contractor, the architect, and
the owner.
And the architect becomes marginalized,
and becomes less important. And so the
owner needs somebody to talk to the
contractor, and they hire a construction manager.
And so that becomes the connection. The construction managers, 
normally,that I've met, are failed architects, who would like to get into a 
situation with 
somebody like me and prove how good they are. And they usually 
inadvertently partner with the
contractor,
and to the detriment to the owner. This 
that's the basic- now it doesn't happen like
that all time, and all contractors
are, most of them are great
and they like what I'm saying, they like the idea of getting
precision in their bidding, and 
not having to get into the terrible
fights. 
30 percent of the
construction industry is acknowledged as
waste, so if you talk about
issues of sustainability,if you take 30
percent of the construction
around the world, it's a huge, huge
pile of waste. 15% of it is in change
orders. 
This software, we did the tower
I think you showed 'em
that. We quickly at the tower at 
8 Spruce Street apartment
tower in New York, yeah. 
That exterior skin 
like this was done with no change orders
zero. So if you save the 15% of
the
what that would've been- and for roughly the cost of a flat middle scape- 
So  we were able to do 
that curved facade. 
The only reason to do that curved facade was not just
decoration. Those are bay windows, so each
one of those bubbles, if you're in the
apartment, is a bay window. 
And so you're walking out and it's pretty specatular
and it didn't cost a lot more
to accomplish because of the software so
and I started a software 
company because nobody else was doing it. 
And I need help. 
I'm very good at running my own service
company but
to have a separate service company at my
side. I just
cant. It's like gnat and I don't want to bother with it. 
Mmhmm.
It seems to me you're also working on trying to
make the point that
we often think of technology as
allowing
infinite replication of the same thing. 
And you're using it
in a very different way to create a
unique object that we might not be able
to afford to make today,
in today's economics. 
But, uh, so now 
the younger generation is using
computers and a lot of people are
designing
with the computer right, right, almost
right to the construction
document. 
And it's a sort of, what the pitfall has
been so far
is that, that shortcut
has allowed for, first of all
it takes fees to be less, so everybody likes that.
And it's quicker and the problem with
this
is the software then designs the  building
so the parametric service software you
can recognize it in
all a lot of buildings. I can recognize
which software
so-and-so is using to do. And so 
I mean maybe that's okay, for if it's
used well and some people know how to do
that
but, what I've tried to do is
use the parametrics in a smaller
scale so
analyzing
these forms for flats, the percentage a
flat surface,
percentage of cylindrical surface, and
the percentage of
spherical surface, and is
if I can keep the flat and the cylindrical
to ninety percent of the building,
45 each and 10 percent to spheres 
and it's easy to analyze the forms that way
and get, you can get freer shapes,
you can have more variety and
more expressive, and you can stay within
budget that way.
We have a, actually, a wonderful group of questions here 
and I'm gonna ask your apologies
in advance
there actually all good, but
since we're not supposed to be here
through dinner
we're gonna have to be selective so I
apologize in advance if we
do not use your question.
Let me start with one now that 
hits close to home here, I guess it's how
can a building unify
campus that is spread out?
Well the good thing here is 
you if the buildings don't look good you can plant trees in front of it.
I don't know the answer to that.
That's what came to mind when you said
it. 
Right, right right, well wasn't it Frank Lloyd Wright who said 
"doctors get to bury their mistakes but architects can only plant ivy"
I'm gonna put a couple of questions
together....one asks "What projects are you working on next and which one do you have
particular emotional ties to?" and then
"How do you select which projects you do?"
Well, how I select 
is how comfortable I am with
the project, the people, and if I feel
like I can contribute to it 
and that we can create a mutual respect
partnership
a lot of stuff comes at
people like me from somebody 
that wants to use the name 
and the oh just do it quick
you know you know it's a 80 story
building, you can do in a week.
We want Gehry Light...
Yeah, and so, that's a 
sort of a exaggerated version, but there are
a lot of stuff comes at you like that.
So I'm very polite and usually I'll
have passed on stuff, even when I
needed work,
I've always felt, and I've talked about
this in my notes to self that
a teacher told me that what you're
only,
you have to do, whatever you do, it has
to be the best thing you've ever done
because you're going to be judged by that last
work, and I think that's
pretty accurate. And so I'm
careful
about being able to
really do something. 
It's like Zuckerberg
he's not really interested in this
as I said, in capital A architecture but it was an
intriguing problem in treating
the fellow
nice interesting person to work with.
It seems to me that you're also very
interested
in convincing people who are not
interested in capital A architecture
that it that there can be a value to it.
I mean part of Bilbao I think, is how many 
people who were not interested in architecture got excited about 
architecture because of it. 
Well, Bilbao when I went there, was a dead
city.
They were losing, kids  would graduate
high school
and leave. The industry was dead.
The shipping and steel industry and the
separatists were
blowing things up 
it's totally changed. The kids
stay there, the amount of 
applicants for university
lot of them, there's a big percentage 
go into architecture. I'd like to tell
them not to, but....
but they do and so they're inspired by
it. 
I think it you know we learn that from
the Sydney Opera House
that a building like that can
brand the whole country,
and so it's
it's possible and in the case of Bilbao
building cost three hundred dollars a
square foot
to build and it's,
last year 82% of the 400 million euros
that the city earned came from
people coming to visit the building which is
kind of 
crazy, but--You should've taken a royalty
instead of a fee, actually
And I think so architecture has a power
it's kind of interesting to use it but
not abuse it. 
The Disney Concert Hall, The Chamber of Commerce now has it
being more important
than the Hollywood sign. Can you believe
that?
I always thought the Hollywood sign was kind of a 
smear on the landscape, you know.
It is a rickety old thing.  
But people love it, and, anyway. Let's come back
here to this campus again, it's an 
intriguing question
that says USC,
UCSC, rather is embarking on a campaign
branding UCSC as quote 
"The original authority on questioning
authority"
Can you speak to this theme
as it is reflected in your work?
How does your work
question authority? Yes how does your work
question authority?
I'd be more interested to see how
that theme plays out architecturally at 
UC Santa Cruz. Okay. 
Has it heretofore?
I say they plant trees in front of stuff, so
Architecturally, you're not noted. 
Although, Kresge College I think is kind of nice. Yeah, Charles Moore did a nice job. 
Yes, yes, well. You're not alone, most
universities don't
have. I mean Princeton made it 
a case of doing it. Yale has had better. 
SC, where I graduated has never called
me to do anything, so..nor any of my friends who graduated
Right, right right. 
It is not an uplifting environment,
architecturally now USC. Well, none of them are.
Right, right, okay. Um, in an interview In 
Conversations with Frank Gehry, you
mentioned the spirit of play,
that informs some of your work. Could you
talk
for a moment about this spirit and how
it's brought to bear in your buildings
despite pressure, deadlines, budgets and
other constraints.
So, um
when you're a little kid, 
you play with your friends, and that
becomes the beginnings
of your socialization and it 
continues to create relationships
through your
your life, into your business world and
to your other
worlds but you hear people
above all disciplines,
and you hear it a lot in the
business world
is somebody,
you'll hear somebody say, "Well, let's have 
a retreat was a senior staff and kick
around play around with some ideas"
I mean that's normal kind of and it's kind of 
the same you agree that
that's who we are as people. We do play
with ideas. We do
test things, play with things. We try to
the creative, 
the most incredible business in people
are creative.
They're artists in that sense,
in the same way, that they're exploring
as you've seen
in this area with the computer-
Silicon Valley.
It's all about play
in a sense, it's serious play, right
but it's trying to remain, 
maintain a kind of innocence and I think
that has to do with feeling
that you're better in touch with
what's happening
than if you come and pro forma. If you
come in
with the pro forma thing, you're dealing
with the past,
and the only way to get in touch with the
present
and hopefully,direction, is
to allow yourself play with ideas.
Play with, so in that sense,
that's what I meant by that. Good, good good. 
What visual artists have most inspired you?  You've been connected to the world
of visual art more than most architects over
the years. Well, when I got out of 
school I was 
I worked for a Viennese
guy who was a perfectionist about detail, 
and I loved him and I loved what he was
doing and
I really got into it and then I started my
own practice. 
And then, you know like, I ended up with
wood butchers and
the kind of crappy workmanship you get
on
house remodeling and stuff like that. And
it was frustrating, and at that time
Bob Rosenberg was doing combines and
a lot of my artist friends who I
hung out with were using
raw materials and things. And they're
making
art out of it, you know, and
at that time LA had millions of tract
homes under construction and you saw this 
wood framing and there was a kind of a 
powerful beauty to it that I
decided to go with it, say "okay quit
fighting it, 
make it a virtue, see what
happens",
and it kinda worked. 
I don't say that the world should
aspire to doing poor workmanship but
if I were to work and go building in
China now there
the level of craftsmanship is pretty low. 
I would use that as a 
positive element rather than trying to
fight it. 
Um, China reminds me of, I know you're often
very competitive, as many professionals
are with your fellow architects
and unhappy when a job you want doesn't
go your way,
as with the museum in China we showed. -That's me.-
Which  is being done by someone
else
but at the same time you've also
historically been very generous to other
architects and 
referred work to them and encouraged
them and
spoken well of them. What building for the
last few years have you most
admired that you did not design?
Well I liked the CCTV tower
in Beijing, Ram Ku House. 
I've never been in it but what I like
about it is
on the outside as a skyline building
that's a unique skyline building, as you
turn around, it becomes other buildings. 
Something else and that's something
I played with
years ago on the Ron Davis house, 
that idea. I was
 never able to so I, 
I would have loved to have a building
that scale, to do that. 
Any others, or just that one? Just that one. 
Just that one!
Well, can 
I go people who are dead? Yeah why not, there are no rules 
here. 
Okay, well the guy who  
resonates the most with me is on the guy who did the Einstein tower.
Mendelssohn, Eric Mendelssohn. When I was a
student at SC, Eric Mendelssohn came and gave
 talk 
and he showed his work and he was
very arrogant. He was very, you know, mean-spirited and nobody understood him
kind of like I am today.
And so it was a turnoff, 
and then over the years
I'm became more and more interested in his
drawings and how they translate into
buildings. He didn't get to 
build a lot but the Einstein tower
Paul and I visited together is is one of those
amazing buildings if you get a chance to
go to Potsdamn
to visit it. Which has
curves, curve shapes and it's quite
quite extraordinary. Those
commissions don't come often you
know
so that, if you look around the
the landscape there aren't that many
that get to rise to that level. 
Le Corbusier in his career,
if you look back at it,
its ran som, tourrette, 
fill sub roy. The 
planning, or the big scale stuff on
doesn't hold right? Most of it is pretty terrible, actually. 
He was a great architect but a terrible  
urban planner, actually. 
But he rose to the pretty high level
as those urban planner
in terms of the world.
Kahn did few things right 
I think Wright has the most 
big hits probably, of anybody. 
So does Beethoven, I mean it's right?
He was arrogant, frankly.  Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. 
That was the time. -That was the time, yes exactly.-
Um, but
not so much about arrogance as just about, you know, 
 what survives the test of time, 
because you know right, as God for his
arrogance is
not our problem anymore the buildings
remain. So it's 
a different thing. So they in a speak for
themselves. 
You talked about Le Corbusier 
as an urban planner, remind me of another thing that we 
kind of slipped by but didn't really explore a few minutes ago. 
With a city
designed all with Frank Gehry building be a
good thing?
Why not? I mean...
Would you want to have a commision to do 
and block after block after block of a city? No, I wouldn't, 
I don't think that's right. I think but, I
mean
we've worked hard to have a have
democracy, right?
Democracy means that people have the
freedom to
to express themselves and
and I wouldn't to anything to
screw around with that. So the idea of
building a whole
thing as a way of 
life,  and I mean Wright did that and Corb did that. 
These are different times that
to be able to build a Bilbao that  changes a city
that's the scale  want to work at. 
And Disney Hall. 
So I think, you know, it's not like romantic 
about that. -But also part of the magic of Bilbao is how it 
plays off against the old city. And I don't design every 
piece inside of it. I don't overdo it. 
Ilike the idea of clients building, bringing
their own stuff to it
and especially a residence. 
Which I don't do many. I don't do many of them anymore.  I was going to ask,
actually
what would make you do our house today? 
Well, 
I am doing one for an artist, John Baldisari,
he asked me and I love
him, and it's a small house and it's in the
neighborhood. 
And so, we accepted it. 
But it's tough to do a house. 
It's tough. 
My son is doing my house
because I don't want to deal with it. I have a client that's much too difficult. 
Right, right. 
Do you think you will, in fact, 
when that move into that house and leave
the
the famous house you've been living in
Santa Monica for thirty years?
I don't now that's a question. I'm 84 so
moving seems rather stupid. 
Right. 
However, I've 
become very interested in classical
music and its
part of, in fact, if anybody here wants
design a music room, or anything to do with classical music, count me in. 
So we're doing a little 
building in Berlin for Daniel
Barenboim, 700C. 
And I'm doing it as a gift to the
orchestra, 
the Devon Orchestra,  which is
the orchestra Palestinians in Israelis
And that's a powerful idea, watching them play together, it's been
just amazing. And so I, 
you know and were doing a dudamel, 
thing in Venezuela with a campus for his
sistema. So, you're really at a point 
in your career where you can do the jobs
that
excite you or move your give you some
kind a fresh challenge in
bring you in a new direction or
something special. Yeah I think
at this point, if it's not that interesting
I should stay out. 
right but I have
an officer I've got three or four maybe
five
very talented young people. 
Not all guys and
that I'm nurturing and I think
inevitably I'm not gonna be in that office so I'm trying to figure out how to...
-Right.- And the thing I'm can leave them with is a 
very solid technical managerial
crore to support them, which I didn't
have when I started out. 
And so I'm working on that. Great. 
We have sadly come to the end of our
appointed time so Frank, thank you very
very much. 
Please join me in thanking Frank. 
