Building a mystery: Preliminary sketches by architect Frank Gehry reveal a creative language all their own

Newsletters Subscription

Building a mystery: Preliminary sketches by architect Frank Gehry reveal a creative language all their own

Archiseek / Canada / News / 2005 / March 16

They appear as a chaotic, nonsensical compilation of squiggles, scratches and loops, but Canadian architect Frank Gehry's preliminary building sketches are, in fact, anything but, as is explained in a new book, Gehry Draws, which looks at more than 360 of Gehry's original sketches for 29 major projects. Before Gehry takes pen (black ink on off-white wove paper) in hand, he has been fully briefed on the upcoming project by his design team. He has visited the building site, he understands its scale, what the spaces inside will be used for, the relationship to the client and any building restrictions.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the original story which was a working link at the time of publication may be no longer available on the newspaper site. In that case, the dates and headline of the story will allow you to research the original through your local library. In addition, some newspaper sites may require registration, either at a cost or free.