Gehry Talks : Architecture + Process

Rating:
Summary: A fitting tribute to this groundbreaking architect
Review: "Gehry Talks" is a thought provoking study of the evolution of Frank Gehry's avante-garde architecture. Anyone who adores modern architecture, or modern art for that matter, would be inspired by and should own this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great insight into the architectural mind of Gehry
Review: Frank Gehry's architecture has been receiving a lot of attention lately, and one can often wonder "How do those building get built?" well this book will tell you how the design go from sketches, to models, to the computer, to the final product... The photos in the book of models and the computer renderings are incredibly interesting and help the reader understand what it takes for a Gehry building to be born. Old, recent, and current projects are featured in this book. Definately a book worth picking up.

Rating:
Summary: Great insight into the architectural mind of Gehry
Review: Frank Gehry's architecture has been receiving a lot of attention lately, and one can often wonder "How do those building get built?" well this book will tell you how the design go from sketches, to models, to the computer, to the final product... The photos in the book of models and the computer renderings are incredibly interesting and help the reader understand what it takes for a Gehry building to be born. Old, recent, and current projects are featured in this book. Definately a book worth picking up.

Rating:
Summary: Gehry's essays unpretentious, lack depth
Review: The big plus for me in reading this book is that Gehry lacks the pretension of being overly intellectual and doesn't feel the need to wrap himself in some sort of pseudo-scientific process -- as if he himself is an observer of his own, mysterious, secret process. His anecdotes for each project are conversational and reflect a lot of facets of the profession that people see as interfering with design.

On the other hand, I read this book with the expectation that I would get some great insight, some more lessons that I could take with me and apply them to my work. I was disappointed with the depth of insight into his own projects. I got the general sense that each project was a reaction to incidental material in front of him, some vague sense of character he wanted in the work and some of those "real-world" constraints he had to deal with. In other words, the essays weren't into big ideas, not much philosophy, and little depth in terms of projects' evolution. It presents each project as a kind of Rue Goldberg set of moments, more of a quick chronology and sometimes more about how he got the commission than how he got the design.

There are a few moments of good insight in the introduction, before he gets into specific projects. For example, his interest in the drapery of clothing, particularly its representation in sculpture (his example is a bit odd, perhaps) is obvious if you've looked at his stuff long enough, but it's nice to hear as much from him. There is more insight into Gehry's relationships with other people, his clients and a couple of his designers here, and that's a good read to some extent.

The photos are pretty good. However, they don't complement the writing very well, nice as they are. Some things Gehry tries to describe should actually be shown and referenced, but these are mostly PR shots, and the photos are usually aspects of the work, and don't always do a good job orienting you to the project.

Considering how accessible the book's writing is and its relatively affordable price (for an architecture book, that is), I still think it's worth picking up for yourself. Different people will be rewarded differently from it, but it's not on the level of other great architects' writings.