Frank Gehry, the legendary American architect whose revolutionary designs transformed modern architecture, has died at the age of 96. His office director Meaghan Lloyd announced that Gehry passed away from a brief respiratory illness. The New York Times described him as "one of the most impressive and original talents in the history of American architecture."

Gehry was among the world's most famous and sought-after architects, with his buildings standing across the globe. His notable works include the Neuer Zollhof in Düsseldorf, Germany, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C., and residential buildings in Prague, New York, and many other cities worldwide.

Gehry's buildings are characterized by their gleaming, silver forms that seem to defy conventional architectural norms. "I rebelled against everything," he told the New York Times in 2012, explaining his aversion to stark, flat, modernist forms. "I couldn't live in a house like that," Gehry told the newspaper. "I'd have to come home, wash my clothes and hang them up neatly. I found that snobbish and effeminate. It just didn't fit into life." In 1989, Gehry won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize.

At first glance, his buildings appear as if they had fallen from a parallel world with different laws of gravity. Shimmering and glittering, they bend skyward with titanium shells. Gehry's postmodern construction style was captivating from the beginning because it reversed the design principle "Form Follows Function" propagated by the Bauhaus school: Form, as Gehry demonstrated, need not follow function at all. The form itself can dominate a building and create its own impact.

This philosophy is evident in the Guggenheim Museum (1997) in Bilbao, Spain, and the Disney Concert Hall (2003) in California, which rank among Gehry's most famous projects. The fragments of these buildings appear individually unorganized and chaotic yet follow a distinct rhythm. The Spanish Guggenheim—a deconstructivist, sparkling marvel of glass, titanium, and limestone—remains a popular tourist destination that captivates even people who are not particularly interested in architecture. Architect Philip Johnson called it "the greatest building of our time." Due to the many cultural pilgrims it attracted, the term "Bilbao Effect" was coined.

According to Gehry himself, he built 20 to 30 models for each project. He would crumple cardboard or tear paper and glue the pieces together. From his constant search for ways to bring these complex geometric structures into the world affordably and stably, Gehry's own technology company for design software emerged. Using the first idea that came to mind or not delivering the best possible performance was "not fair," he once said. The star architect advised treating all projects equally: "No matter how small a project may be, treat it as if it were the most important."

He took even smaller projects seriously. In 1977, he redesigned his two-story house in traditional bungalow style near Los Angeles by dismantling the building down to its frame and covering it with chain-link fencing and corrugated metal. The house looked as if it had exploded. Soon Gehry was building worldwide, including the Fish Pavilion for the Olympic Games in Barcelona (1992), the Cinémathèque Française in Paris (1994), and the Dancing House in Prague (1996).

Like every great artist, Gehry had some critics who dismissed his buildings as sinfully expensive playthings of an egocentric architect who only wanted to put on a big show. "Ninety-eight percent of everything that is built and designed in our world is pure shit," Gehry said in 2014 when a journalist presented him with this criticism—and raised his middle finger. "There is no sense of design or respect for humanity or anything else," he criticized. As eccentric and expansive as Gehry's buildings could be, the man himself could sometimes be just as outspoken.

Gehry was born in 1929 in Toronto, Canada, as the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland. As a teenager, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Gehry's father and he himself took jobs as truck drivers. Before becoming an architect, Gehry had also stocked shelves in his grandfather's hardware store. This eventually awakened his "love for everyday materials," as Gehry said.

Another formative experience, according to Gehry, was a weekly fish dish that his grandmother prepared. She always bought fresh fish at a market for this purpose. "We put it in the bathtub and I played with the fish for a day until she killed it and made stuffed fish," he said in an interview with the New York Times. This inspired him to incorporate fish motifs into his buildings. Characteristic curved forms and scale-like silver coloring became his trademark.

At an evening school where he completed his graduation requirements, a teacher discovered his interest in architecture and supported him. In the 1960s, Gehry founded his own architecture studio in Los Angeles and received his first commissions. Even in his advanced age, Gehry continued to work on designs and projects until the end.

His final works included the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, completed in 2014, the Pierre Boulez Saal of the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin from 2017, and a year later the main building of the LUMA Art and Culture Campus in Arles, France. Previously, Gehry also worked on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, California, from 2012 to 2015.