The Century of Gehry: New retrospective explores the late architect’s work & collaborations | News

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Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles. Image credit: Frank O. Gehry. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2017.m.66)

The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal, is set to open a major retrospective dedicated to the work of Frank Gehry. 

Titled The Century of Gehry, the exhibition will chart the late architect’s career through models, drawings, furniture, sculptures, and archival material spanning several decades of practice.

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao. Image courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP.

The exhibition will run from June 12 to December 30, 2026, in the museum’s Álvaro Siza Wing. The retrospective is curated by António Choupina, Director of Architecture at the Serralves Foundation, in collaboration with Gehry Partners and Getty.

DZ Bank, Berlin. Image courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP.

The exhibition examines 19 projects by Gehry, tracing the evolution of his architectural language from early residential experiments to internationally recognized landmarks. Featured works include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, alongside projects in Toronto, Paris, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Image courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP.

Organized into eight thematic chapters, the exhibition explores Gehry’s approach to form, materiality, and structure. According to organizers, the curation seeks to uncover Gehry work as something “dynamic and human – both practical and imaginative, shaped by creativity, emotion, and poetic expression.”

Image courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP.

Materials on display include original sketches, photographs, models, and archival documents sourced from Gehry Partners and the Getty Research Institute. The original model of Gehry’s Santa Monica residence has been loaned by the MAK Museum in Vienna.

Gehry Residence, Santa Monica. Image credit: Frank O. Gehry. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2017.m.66)

The retrospective also highlights Gehry’s collaborations and exchanges with artists and architects, including 1992 Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza. The two architects previously collaborated on the master plan for the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Image courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP.

“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,” Siza said about Gehry. “That joy he had slowly transformed the history of architecture. I hoped to see him again at Serralves but, despite his absence, I know that all the rooms in the museum and all the streets in the city will be filled because of him.”

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