Top 70 Frank Gehry Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, that we all have something to put in the pie to make it better, and that the collaborative interaction works.”

— Frank Gehry

Featured in: Collaboration Quotes

2. “Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”

— Frank Gehry

3. “I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.”

— Frank Gehry

4. “You can look anywhere and find inspiration.”

— Frank Gehry

5. “Your best work is your expression of yourself.”

— Frank Gehry

6. “Let the experience begin!”

— Frank Gehry

7. “You’ve got to bumble forward into the unknown.”

— Frank Gehry

8. “I am obsessed with architecture. It is true, I am restless, trying to find myself as an architect and how best to contribute in this world filled with contradiction, disparity and inequality, even passion and opportunity.”

— Frank Gehry

9. “Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you’re the only expert.”

— Frank Gehry

10. “In the end, the character of a civilization is encased in its structures.”

— Frank Gehry

11. “You can’t ignore history; you can’t escape it even if you want to. You might as well know where you come from, and you might as well know that everything has been done in some shape or form.”

— Frank Gehry

12. “You have to build up a credibility before the support comes to you.”

— Frank Gehry

13. “I work from the inside out.”

— Frank Gehry

14. “I think my best skill as an architect is the achievement of hand-to-eye coordination. I am able to transfer a sketch into a model into the building.”

— Frank Gehry

15. “Take what comes your way. Do the best with it. Be responsible as you can and something good will happen...”

— Frank Gehry

16. “I don’t want to do architecture that’s dry and dull.”

— Frank Gehry

17. “If you know where it’s going, it’s not worth doing.”

— Frank Gehry

18. “One of my greatest influences is the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.”

— Frank Gehry

19. “You have freedom, so you have to make choices – and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It’s a signature.”

— Frank Gehry

20. “For me, every day is a new thing.”

— Frank Gehry

21. “Not every person has the same kinds of talents, so you discover what yours are and work with them.”

— Frank Gehry

22. “Time is just a blur for me. I don’t know what – I don’t even know where I am sometimes.”

— Frank Gehry

23. “There are a great many things about architecture that are hidden from the untrained eye.”

— Frank Gehry

24. “I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don’t get a lot of work sometimes.”

— Frank Gehry

25. “Liquid architecture. It’s like jazz – you improvise, you work together, you play off each other, you make something, they make something. And I think it’s a way of – for me, it’s a way of trying to understand the city, and what might happen in the city.”

— Frank Gehry

26. “A well-designed home has to be very comfortable. I can’t stand the aesthetes, the minimal thing. I can’t live that way. My home has to be filled with stuff – mostly paintings, sculpture, my fish lamps, cardboard furniture, lots of books.”

— Frank Gehry

27. “An architect is given a program, budget, place, and schedule. Sometimes the end product rises to art – or at least people call it that.”

— Frank Gehry

28. “I used to sketch – that’s the way I thought out loud. Then they made a book of my sketches, and I got self-conscious, so now I don’t do it much.”

— Frank Gehry

29. “I found the material that people hated the most and used the most. So, I was going and try and see if I could play with it sculpturally.”

— Frank Gehry

30. “The best advice I’ve received is to be yourself. The best artists do that.”

— Frank Gehry

31. “For me, every day is a new thing. I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did. And I get the sweats. I go in and start working, I’m not sure where I’m going. If I knew where I was going I wouldn’t do it.”

— Frank Gehry

32. “You have to be optimistic. I still have doubts and conflicts, but the bottom line is, I believe in the future.”

— Frank Gehry

33. “I don’t make things with my hands, although I studied woodworking and made furniture.”

— Frank Gehry

34. “When I was a kid, my father didn’t really have much hope for me. He thought I was a dreamer; he didn’t think I would amount to anything. My mother also.”

— Frank Gehry

35. “Green issues have been used as a marketing tool. Sometimes these green claims are completely meaningless.”

— Frank Gehry

36. “If I knew where I was going, I wouldn’t do it. When I can predict or plan it, I don’t do it.”

— Frank Gehry

37. “Chicago’s one of the rare places where architecture is more visible.”

— Frank Gehry

38. “Man, there’s another freedom out there, and it comes from somewhere else, and that somewhere else is the place I’m interested in.”

— Frank Gehry

39. “Each project, I suffer like I’m starting over again in life. There’s a lot of healthy insecurity that fuels this stuff.”

— Frank Gehry

40. “The message I hope to have sent is just the example of being yourself. I tell this to my students: It’s not about copying me or my logic systems. It’s about allowing yourself to be yourself.”

— Frank Gehry

41. “I don’t think all buildings have to be iconic, but the history of the world has shown us that cultures build iconic buildings for their major public buildings.”

— Frank Gehry

42. “People ask me if I’m an artist or an architect. But I think they’re the same.”

— Frank Gehry

43. “The fact is I’m an opportunist. I’ll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I’m searching for an idea that works.”

— Frank Gehry

44. “Some people may say my curved panels look like sails. Well, I am a sailor, so I guess I probably do use that metaphor in my work – though not consciously.”

— Frank Gehry

45. “Architecture has always been a very idealistic profession. It’s about making the world a better place and it works over the generations because people go on vacation and they look for it.”

— Frank Gehry

46. “There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories – simple.”

— Frank Gehry

47. “Look, architecture has a lot of places to hide behind, a lot of excuses. ‘The client made me do this.’ ‘The city made me do this.’ ‘Oh, the budget.’ I don’t believe that anymore.”

— Frank Gehry

48. “I like the idea of collaboration – it pushes you. It’s a richer experience...”

— Frank Gehry

49. “There is a backlash against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling.”

— Frank Gehry

50. “The culture of France is unique because it’s a culture that has a high priority on the arts, more than any other place in the world in our time since Greece. So as a practicing artist, if you will, this is home ground. They love us, so music, literature, art continues to be the center.”

— Frank Gehry