{"id":329046,"date":"2025-12-06T21:59:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T21:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329046\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T21:59:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T21:59:23","slug":"frank-gehry-considered-moving-back-to-canada-after-trumps-2024-election-chretien-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/329046\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Gehry considered moving back to Canada after Trump\u2019s 2024 election, Chr\u00e9tien says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Frank Gehry lost his Canadian citizenship after his family moved to the U.S., when dual citizenship was not an option. Former prime minister Jean Chr\u00e9tien restored the architect\u2019s citizenship in 2002.Mark Lennihan\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Former prime minister Jean Chr\u00e9tien says famed architect Frank Gehry had talked to him about moving back to Canada after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump last year.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gehry was born in Toronto but lost his Canadian citizenship after his family moved to Los Angeles in 1947, when dual citizenship was not an option.<\/p>\n

Mr. Chr\u00e9tien, who was a close friend of Mr. Gehry, restored the architect\u2019s Canadian citizenship when he was prime minister in 2002. The architect then held dual citizenship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave him back his Canadian citizenship. He was sworn in as a Canadian in my office. The only newcomer sworn in the office of the Prime Minister,\u201d he said in an interview with The Globe and Mail Saturday. \u201cSo I was very pleased to make him a Canadian.\u201d <\/p>\n

The former prime minister said Mr. Gehry, who died Friday at age 96, was despondent about the election of Mr. Trump and had reached out to talk about returning to Canada. <\/p>\n

Frank Gehry, legendary architect of some of world\u2019s most iconic buildings, dies at 96<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very discouraged with the election of Trump. He looked at the possibility of coming back to Toronto with his family. We looked into it but the health of his wife and eventually his own health made that too complicated,\u201d Mr. Chr\u00e9tien said. \u201cHe was a very proud Canadian. He was serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gehry often told him that he always used his Canadian passport when he travelled abroad and his office in Los Angeles featured a huge Canadian flag and prominent picture of Canadians who played for the L.A. Kings such as Wayne Gretzky, Roger Vachon and Marcel Dionne.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a great hockey fan,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Chr\u00e9tien, 91, said he struck up a friendship with Mr. Gehry because he had been fascinated with architecture and had wanted to be an architect. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad said to me, \u2018you will never be elected as an architect, you go to the law school.\u2019 And those days you listened to dad. And he wanted to have a politician and he got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank Gehry, the architect behind some of the world’s most recognizable buildings, died on Friday morning at his home in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

One of Mr. Gehry\u2019s celebrated architectural achievements is his L.A. home where he lived for more than 40 years. He wrapped a Dutch colonial house in a sharply angled structure of plywood, corrugated steel and chain-link fence.<\/p>\n

What is not known, according to Mr. Chr\u00e9tien, is that \u201call the wood came from Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another little-known fact is that in 1937, Mr. Gehry\u2019s family moved from Toronto to the gold mining town of Timmins, Ont. But the family faced antisemitism in Timmins and moved back to Toronto and eventually left for California.<\/p>\n

From the archives: How Gehry plans to remake Toronto\u2019s skyline<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to him every month at least for many years. He lived in Timmins which was typical of Canada at the time. There was a lot of Eastern Europeans there and a lot of French Canadians,\u201d Mr. Chr\u00e9tien recounted. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the Canadians [they should] know that he was extremely proud of being a Canadian and I am very proud that I was the one to give him his Canadian citizenship back. I have done it for only one person when I was prime minister and it was for Frank Gehry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Chr\u00e9tien, and his late wife Aline, were highly cultured people even though he played that down politically. As prime minister and later in private life, the couple were known for their private support of the arts and cultural communities.<\/p>\n

When he travelled abroad and visited Mr. Gehry\u2019s architectural works, Mr. Chr\u00e9tien said he would always say: \u201cThis guy, I know him well. He\u2019s a Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Frank Gehry lost his Canadian citizenship after his family moved to the U.S.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-329046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}