Tributes have been paid to visionary architect Frank Gehry, designer of some of the world’s most distinctive buildings, who died on Friday aged 96.
His most notable works include the highly anticipated Guggenheim Abu Dhabi museum, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and Paris's La Fondation Louis Vuitton museum.
The Canadian-born architect was known for his experimental and unconventional designs. And this is hugely evident in the design for the Abu Dhabi museum, with its series of striking cones.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney extended his “deepest condolences” to Mr Gehry's family and the “many admirers of his work”.
“His unmistakable vision lives on in iconic buildings around the world,” he said.
Dr Mariet Westermann, director and chief executive of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, paid tribute.
“The Guggenheim community mourns the loss of Frank Gehry, whose visionary architecture reshaped our institution and changed cities around the world,” she wrote on Instagram.
“From Bilbao to Abu Dhabi, Frank's genius magnified the Guggenheim's mission and showed why museum architecture matters. His buildings paid profound homage to Frank Lloyd Wright's foundational vision for the Guggenheim-architectural distinction in service of, art, artists and visitors of all stripes,” she said.
“Our decades-long collaboration with Frank and Gehry Partners was built on friendship, shared values and an unwavering belief in art's power to transform lives. Frank's legacy will inspire generations to come. We are so grateful.”
Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum said it would “be forever grateful” and “his spirit and legacy will always remain connected to Bilbao”.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, first announced in 2006, is nearing completion on Saadiyat Island. It is surrounded by other landmark institutions in the Saadiyat Cultural District, such as Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Natural History Museum and Zayed National Museum.
During the 2022 Culture Summit Abu Dhabi, Mr Gehry spoke about the design, with The National reporting at the time on how it was the structures of minarets and domes that captivated him the most.
“I understood that the same form multiplied was something that was part of the language of the architecture of the region,” he said.
The Abu Dhabi museum will feature nine cone-shaped structures, which aim to be spaces for commissions and acquisitions.
“The cones will have amazing commissions,” Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism, previously said.
“You will have galleries that will continuously have rotating artists. You will have spaces where we marry live performances with art.
“Frank Gehry has worked with us in creating a beautiful architectural feat.”
Mr Gehry, born in Toronto in 1929 and who then moved to America in his teens, enjoyed one of his first successes by rebuilding his own Santa Monica home – a pink traditional Dutch colonial house – with chain-link fencing and corrugated aluminium.
He won the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1989 and was an early and avid user of computer software that allowed him to stretch the boundaries of architecture.
But it was the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, completed in 1997, that propelled him to stardom.
Not only did the design make Mr Gehry famous, it also played a role in rejuvenating the city.
And it led other cities to try to replicate its success, in what has become known as the “Bilbao effect”.
Aside from buildings, he also dabbled in furniture, watch and jewellery design and even a hat for singer Lady Gaga.
