Main Entry: 1sculp·ture
1 a : the action or art of processing (as by carving, modeling, or welding) plastic or hard materials into works of art
Source: Merriam Webster Online Dictionary
This photo by David Heald is of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which opened in 1997.
Frank Gehry, the architect who designed this project, told his friend producer/director Sydney Pollack that it all started when he was about 8 years old.
"... my grandmother would get a sack of wood-cuttings from the wood stove. Every once in a while she'd open the sack and throw the stuff out onto the floor and we'd sit down on the floor and start building things. We made cities and freeways .. it was so much fun."
A few years later his Rabbi told his mother he had golden hands; a handwriting analyst told him he would be a famous architect; his instructor (in his second year of architectural classes) told him he didn't have what it takes.
But he did become an architect.
Later, the moment of truth came at a dinner party.
Gehry's words, from "Sketches of Frank Gehry,"
"At the same time as I did (my) house I was building Santa Monica Place. The night Santa Monica Place opened we had dinner here with the president of the Rouse Company -- he was a lawyer -- and he says to me 'What the hell is this?' (He was referring to Gehry's home.) Well you know, I was experimenting and playing. He said 'Do you like it? You must like it?' I said, I do. 'Well if you like this then you can't possibly like that,' and he pointed to Santa Monica Place. I said, you're right, I don't. And he said, 'So why'd you do that?' And I said, because I had to make a living and he said, 'Stop it. You should stop it ... don't do that.' And, I said you're right.
Now at that moment 45 people in my office were working on projects for him and he and I shook hands that night and decided to quit everything.
It was like jumping off a cliff, it was an amazing feeling and I was so happy from then on."
Gehry's first reaction when he saw the Guggenheim in Bilbao: he said he was embarrassed.
From the Guggenheim website, about the Museum and its impact:
"... (this project) has succeeded in creating an iconic identity for Bilbao. The singular economic and cultural impact felt in the wake of its opening in October 1997 has sparked an increased awareness of the powerful force that architecture can wield."
"When an artist comes to me, he wants to know how to change the world."
- Milton Wexler, Gehry's Insightful Therapist
That is why great architecture is "interactive art."
By the way, what makes you feel like you're 8 years old again? How do you play?
Has anyone loved you enough to tell you to "Stop it" and be who you really are?
