Did Frank Gehry have children? Visionary architect's family revisited as he dies at 96

Legendary architect Frank Gehry died on Friday, December 6, in his home in Santa Monica, California. The architect known for designing some of the greatest buildings in the world, like the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, was 96. His representative confirmed the news to several news outlets.

Not only was he an architectural genius, Frank Gehry was also a husband and father. At the time of his death, Frank was married to Berta Aguilera. He and Berta tied the knot in 1975, nine years after his divorce from his first wife, Anita Snyder. He was the father of four children: two sons, Alejandro and Samuel, and a daughter, Brina. His other daughter, Leslie Gehry Brenner, died of cancer in 2008.

More details on Frank Gehry’s legacy

Frank Gehry began teaching at his alma mater, the University of Southern California, as a professor of architecture in 2011. It is recorded that he also taught at Yale and Columbia University.

In an interview with NPR, the building sculptor described his work as a reflection of joy and optimism. He stated:

“I've always been for optimism and architecture not being sad, You know, a building for music and performance should be joyful. It should be a great experience, and it should be fun to go to."

Gehry wasn’t a fan of the post-war building silhouettes and described their styles as cold and unwelcoming:

"I thought it was possible to find a way to express feeling and humanistic qualities in a building," Gehry said. "But I wasn't clear about it until I started experimenting, quite accidentally, with fish forms."

The celebrated architect revealed to NPR News that fish inspired some of his designs, as he loved them and drew countless fish.

He recalled:

“Every Thursday when I stayed at her house, I'd go with her to the market. And there would be a big bag of some kind filled with water that we would carry home with a big carp in it. We'd put it in the bathtub. I'd sit and watch it, and the next day it was gone.”

In 2005, Frank Gehry appeared in an episode of The Simpsons, playing himself. In the episode, he gets frustrated when he receives a letter from Marge requesting that he design a new concert hall for the city. He crumples the letter and tosses it aside, but gets inspired by the creased, misshapen, and ragged paper.

The scene then cuts to a model of his concert hall for Springfield, which copies the shape of the crumpled letter. Ultimately, Frank Gehry regretted appearing in the show. He revealed that he felt the scene underplayed the complex process he followed to create his masterpieces, adding that none of his works were ever random.

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