When I phoned Frank Gehry to ask him to do this podcast, he immediately said yes. And I’m not the only one Frank has said yes to. Ask around and the stories are the same—Frank giving a million dollars for an arts education in underserved communities along the Los Angeles River, or overseeing a program for mentoring children in underperforming elementary schools.
His philanthropy is based on personal relationships, and I think his architecture is, too. Every time a new Frank Gehry building opened, Richard and I would make a pilgrimage to visit them—the Disney center in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton building in Paris, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. But one summer, in 2008, all we had to do was walk 10 minutes from our house to Hyde Park, because he had built a temporary pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery. He designed the timber-and-glass structure with his son Sammy. For those few months, we met there almost daily, to watch the sunset, to listen to people play music, to eat, and drink. This brave and beautiful structure made the park a better park and, for the summer, London a better city. Today, I have traveled from London to Los Angeles, not to see a Frank Gehry building but to see my dear friend, Frank. Will we have a good time? As always with Frank Gehry, the answer is yes.
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