The legendary architect behind some of the world's most interesting buildings has died. Frank Gehry is best known for creations such as the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
Gehry also left his mark on Cincinnati. He designed the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies on the University of Cincinnati's medical campus. It opened in 1999, with it's claim to fame being that the building has no 90-degree corners and few vertical or horizontal lines.
On its website, the Guggenheim writes of the Vontz Center:
"Although the brick cladding (unusual in Gehry's work) is a link to the staid university buildings nearby, the tilting and bulging forms demonstrate the architect's ability to coax unexpected results from even the most conservative materials. The sense of a building in constant movement is magnified by the roofline's angled planes and the pronounced multistory windows that provide views of the activity inside. State-of-the-art labs are organized along the building's north-south axis; offices occupy the smaller east-west axis. At the center of the cruciform plan, large skylights flood the central atrium, which includes meeting areas for staff."
The Vontz Center is named after Albert Vontz of the Heidelberg beer company, who donated $5 million to the project.
Gehry died Friday after a brief respiratory illness, according to his chief of staff. He was 96.
You can read more about his life from NPR.
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