Renowned Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry dead at 96

Frank Gehry, the Canadian-born renegade architect behind some of the world's most recognizable buildings, has died at 96.

Meaghan Lloyd, chief of staff at Gehry Partners, LLP, said he died on Friday morning at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., following a brief illness.

Known for his unconventional style and daring designs, Gehry brought unique life to cultural spaces including Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

His unusual work on museums, office spaces and private homes generated the sort of attention that's rarely experienced by architects, making his structural creations among the most recognizable in the world. He was even immortalized with a cartoon version of himself in an episode of The Simpsons.

Listening to critics lambaste his trademark out-there designs was just part of the job, Gehry said in 2012 while introducing the initial concept for a trio of condo buildings in his hometown of Toronto.

The buildings drew harsh criticism from some Torontonians when the models were unveiled and went through some redesigns before construction began. A revised plan for the project, which is still in the process of being built, includes two residential skyscrapers in the city's entertainment district.

"In Bilbao, Spain they wanted to shoot me when they saw the (Guggenheim design) and now they get $500-million a year in revenue to the city. I don't know how to overcome (critics), it's just part of the thing," he said, noting the Walt Disney Concert Hall was also mocked as "broken crockery."

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on Feb. 28, 1929 to Polish immigrant parents who lived in Toronto. His childhood had a strong emphasis on family, with his grandparents often credited as the earliest influence for his celebrated career.

His grandmother, Leah, would scatter oddly shaped wood scraps she bought at a nearby furniture shop across her kitchen floor and encourage the young Gehry to use them to construct imaginary buildings, bridges and cities before they went into the family's wood stove.

"(It was) the most fun I ever had in my life. I realized it was a licence to play," Gehry is quoted as saying in the 2015 biography Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, by Paul Goldberger.

As a teenager, Gehry attended Friday lectures at the University of Toronto and became particularly fond of one speaker, who he later concluded was probably Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, another modern designer who thrived on breaking the rules.

Gehry and his family relocated to Los Angeles in 1947 and he became a U.S. citizen three years later. His early years in the U.S. were spent as a truck driver by day, while he took sculpture classes at night school and later got an architecture degree from the University of Southern California.

It wasn't until the mid-1950s that Gehry reluctantly changed his last name at the urges of his first wife. She feared the name Goldberg would expose their children to antisemitism. He later said he regretted doing so.

Those years were filled with professional volatility as he balanced his aspirations with a tight budget and the responsibilities of raising his two children. He served in the U.S. army while building his contacts within the architecture community on weekends, and studied urban planning at Harvard University before dropping out.