San Francisco Frontiers - Frank Gehry: five key works

- Gehry House, Santa Monica, 1978 -

Frank Gehry's own house, which he built early in his career, already signalled the essentials of his architectural style -- convention-busting, a fondness for layered facades, jagged angles and form-defying shapes.

It also made use of raw materials such as plywood, corrugated metal and glass.

Located on a street corner in Santa Monica, the architectural mash-up of the Gehry House was built around a Dutch Colonial bungalow from the 1920s.

It was the family home for four decades and has become a California tourist attraction.

- Dancing House, Prague, 1996 -

A remarkable apparition on a banal waterfront in Prague, one of the twin towers of this concrete and glass building appears to lean into the other, as a dancer might into a partner.

The nine-floor office building, nicknamed Fred and Ginger after the famous dancing duo, was a collaboration between Gehry and Czech architect Vlado Milunic.

Set on the site of a US bombing in 1945 at the end of World War II, it is a vivid expression of the deconstructivism style that Gehry became indelibly associated with -- opting for fragmentation over symmetry but often creating a new kind of harmony.

- Guggenheim, Bilbao, 1997 -

Described by The Guardian as "the most influential building of modern times", Gehry's design for the art museum coined the term the "Bilbao effect" to describe the economic boom created in run-down locations through cultural regeneration and eye-catching architecture.

Gehry used computer software intended for the aviation industry to design his building, which is a massive structure made of stone and glass with multiple flat facades in gold gleaming titanium sheathing.

"The finish of the approximately 33,000 extremely thin titanium sheets provides a rough and organic effect, adding to the material’s color changes depending on the weather and light conditions," the museum says on its website.

- Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003 -

The multi-facades of shimmering stainless steel that encase this concert hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, took 16 years to finish after Walt Disney's widow donated an initial $50 million.

The ambitious plan to create a cultural hub in downtown Los Angeles eventually cost $274 million, the outcome hailed by the New York Times in 2003 as "the most gallant building you're ever likely to see".

The dazzling structure makes the most of the year-long LA sunshine, luminous both outside and in, with 293,000 square feet (27,200 square metres) of interior space and a main auditorium which seats 2,265.

- Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014 -

Nestled in the Bois de Boulogne just outside Paris, this vast gallery offers a beguiling site amid the trees, with its overlapping glass and steel panels and a cascade of water flowing underneath it.

Celebrated by some critics as among Gehry's most technologically advanced and creative buildings, it cost $135 million and houses the private art collection of French billionaire Bernard Arnault.

M.Powell--SFF