A large building with a giant pair of black binoculars at its entrance, flanked by modern white and dark angular structures, with a person walking on the sidewalk.
Chiat/Day Building, Los Angeles, California.

June 17, 2026

Words: Edie Cohen

Photography: courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP

‘The Century Of Gehry’ Retrospective Opens In Porto, Portugal

Through materiality, form, and structure, Frank Gehry (1929-2025) altered the face of architecture. Through his works, he altered, too, the faces of cities. Bilbao, once a powerhouse in steel production and shipbuilding, saw major economic decline leading to a gritty reputation in the 1970s. The 1997 launch of the titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum brought an about-face for the Basque city, now a mecca for international devotees of art, architecture, and design.

A slightly similar story unfolded in Los Angeles, the adopted city of Canadian-born Gehry. Its 2003 Walt Disney Concert Hall with gleaming panels of stainless-steel sails outside and pitch-perfect acoustics within, upped the upped the cultural ante and was a significant factor in the revitalization of DTLA. While Paris, of course, is an abundant moveable feast for the arts, no visit would be complete without a trip to the Foundation Luis Vuitton (2014) set inside the Bois de Boulogne. On a more intimate scale, his own 1978 Santa Monica dwelling elevated corrugated metal, chain-link fencing, and tilted glass as exposed elements transforming a colonial-style bungalow into a gutsy composition. Kids at the nearby Franklin Elementary School not only gawked, but imagined houses as other than the accustomed styles of their everyday lives.

A Glimpse At ‘The Century of Gehry’ Retrospective On View 

  • A modern building with irregular, metallic facades and boxy windows rises above a circular glass base, reflecting sunset light. Construction signs and a stone wall are visible in the foreground.
    Luma, Arles, France.
  • Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River with Manhattan skyscrapers in the background, seen from a grassy area under a partly cloudy sky.
    Beekman Tower/8 Spruce, New York.
  • The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao’s metallic, curving exterior with a large floral sculpture shaped like a dog in front, seen from a city street.
    Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain.
  • A modern atrium with a large, abstract metallic sculpture and geometric glass ceilings, surrounded by wood-paneled walls and windows.
    DZ Bank, Berlin, Germany.
  • Two modern high-rise buildings with irregularly stacked glass sections stand among other skyscrapers at sunset in an urban skyline.
    Forma at King Street, Toronto, Canada.
  • Architectural model of a futuristic building with translucent, curved surfaces and exposed structural elements, displayed against a dark background.
    Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France.
  • A white Volkswagen Beetle is elevated off the ground, supported by several wooden chairs in a parking lot next to a brick wall.
    Cardboard furniture series.
  • A large building with a giant pair of black binoculars at its entrance, flanked by modern white and dark angular structures, with a person walking on the sidewalk.
    Chiat/Day Building, Los Angeles, California.

These seminal works are among the 19 projects comprising the celebratory retrospective, “The Century of Gehry,” on viewe from June 12 to December 30, 2026 at Porto, Portugal’s Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, specifically its Álvaro Siza wing, designed by Gehry’s fellow Pritzker Prize-winner and inaugurated in 2024. The two had collaborated on the master plan for Pasadena’s Art Center’s College of Design, which is featured along with: DZ Bank, Berlin; Chiat/Day, affectionately known as the Binocular Building in Venice (Los Angeles; Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; Luma Arles cultural complex in France; Beekman Tower/8 Spruce Street, Manhattan; and the two twisting residential towers of Toronto’s Forma slated for 2028 completion, among others. Drawings, models, and photographs illustrate; pieces of his ground-breaking corrugated cardboard furniture are on view in real life.

António Choupina, director of architecture at the Serralves Foundation, curated the exhibition in collaboration with Gehry Partners and Getty Images, steward of a large portion of the firm’s archives. He comments: “There’s a before and after Frank Gehry in contemporary architecture.” To which Siza adds: “Joyfully, Frank Gehry started building something new, something that goes hand in hand with the ancient, ever evolving, combining traits of what is unique, natural and necessary.”

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