Synopses & Reviews
Discover the story behind a visionary architect. "Life is chaotic. Buildings should reflect it." So says Frank O. Gehry, architect of one of the most acclaimed and influential buildings of the past century, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Winner of more than one hundred awards for his work, Gehry has a remarkable gift for changing the ordinary into the amazing. His buildings surge with energy and movement, revealing forms never before seen in architecture. Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, award winners in their own right for their acclaimed Chuck Close, Up Close, take us into Gehry's world-from his early years in Canada as the son of Polish immigrants, to his earliest efforts at architecture, to the Guggenheim Bilbao and beyond. Strikingly designed and full of provocative sidebars as well as a glossary and a list of building locations, this is a book that anyone interested in buildings, or popular culture, or the future, will cherish.
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Stylish book design. (San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle)
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[The authors] are extraordinarily good at explaining Gehry's ideas and helping the reader understand his work. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
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Greenberg and Jordan have created a compelling portraitÖ (VOYA)
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A visual feast.... excellent textual accounts of the architect's childhood... (Publishers Weekly)
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... sophisticated yet welcoming-like the architecture of its subject... (Riverbank review)
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A well-designed biography. The text is conceptually sophisticated. Young readers will find much to absorb in this clear, elegant portrait. (Booklist)
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This book isÖthe best introduction to Gehry's architecture that we haveÖ It is one of the best introductions to architecture that we have. (New York Times, (Starred Review))
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This beautifully packaged book is on the cutting edgeÖof modern children's book design. (San Francisco Chronicle)
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This stunning profile of the avant-garde architect is like one of his buildings--exciting, startling, and awesome. Greenberg and Jordan have produced an eminently readable, visually enticing title that takes readers from Gehry's boyhood to his chain-link walled home in Los Angeles, and his famous creations, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Filled with childhood memories, personal quotes, and gorgeous full-color photographs of his work, this volume is a wonderful introduction to a creative and intuitive artist. Useful bits of information are scattered throughout. A section on how to look at a building, captions for each intriguing illustration, technical explanations, and a sample of journalists' descriptions of Gehry's work all help readers understand the art and the artist. A fascinating look at a remarkable man. (School Library Journal, (Starred Review))
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Art history specialists Greenberg and Jordan unite again for an exciting, free wheeling mix of biography and architectural primer, taking readers from the outside to inside the life and work of the acclaimed yet controversial bad boy of international architecture--Frank O. Gehry. Now in his early 70s, he gained international recognition in 1997 when his astounding Guggenheim Museum opened in Bilbao, Spain. That building, with its springy titanium skin and unorthodox organic form (in which 'hardly a straight line exists.'), has transformed a small Basque city into an international destination with over one million visitors a year. More important, the computer-assisted and truly space-age design (using software originally used in the French aerospace industry) of this 'silver dream machine' has changed the practice of architecture--utterly. Gehry's work is playful, curvilinear, and site-specific, incorporating an unorthodox mix of unconventional space-age materials like highly reflective titanium as well as glass, steel, and limestone. Acknowledging that 'life is chaotic' he makes buildings that reflect it. Projects explored include: the 'shocking' renovation of his own Santa Monica tract house (featuring metal, chain-link fence, and unpainted plywood); furniture designs realized in corrugated cardboard and wood laminates; Colorcore fish lamps; the 'binoculars'-shaped building in Venice, California; and the arresting towers in Prague known as 'Fred and Ginger... as if one tower were a dancer being spun by another.' Oversized and handsome, the book's design communicates volumes; it's an eclectic mix of fonts and colors, enlivened with ghost images, sidebars, drawings, and photos. (Kirkus Reviews, (Starred Review))
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How can Greenberg and Jordan follow up their much-lauded achievement Chuck Close: Up Close? With an equally riveting introduction to the work of controversial architect Gehry, whose playful heaps and sweeps of gleaming, undulating metal and surprise packages of giant binoculars, copper domes, and wasp-waisted glass towers bear testimony to the author's assessment that 'at heart he's a big kid with the best set of Legos in the world.' Not only will readers, most of whom have undoubtedly never heard of Gehry, be mesmerized by outstandingly reproduced photos of his landmark buildings (many captured from a variety of angles), but they will also be intrigued by the outrage that often met Gehry's efforts and his risky policy of 'refusing projects that required him to compromise.' The authors seamlessly integrate relevant biographical details, tracing the artistic and business choices that paved the route to Gehry's career development with well-placed questions and pointers for interpreting the edifices as artistic statements. Gehry's work is a perfect vehicle for introducing children to the delight and power of contemporary architecture, and this presentation is worthy of its subject. (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, (Starred Review))
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Greenberg and Jordan seem to be pioneering a new form--the picture biography for all age groups. (San Jose Mercury News)
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The photographs in this book are spectacular. (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Synopsis
Jordan and Greenberg make the ideas of this provocative architect accessible and inspiring to young readers in a biography of Gehry that shows his deepest influences. Full-color photos, interactive sidebars and a Glossary complete the picture of this master builder.
About the Author
Jan Greenberg is a writer, teacher, and art educator. She is also the author of many critically acclaimed books for young readers, including Chuck Close, Up Close, co-written with Sandra Jordan and published by DK Ink. She lives in St. Louis. Sandra Jordan is a writer, editor, and photographer. She and Jan Greenberg are the co-authors of Chuck Close, Up Close, an ALA Notable Book, a Boston Globe/ Horn Book Honor Book, and a School Library Journal Best Book of 1998. They are also the authors of The Painterís Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art, an ALA Notable Book, and The Sculptorís Eye: Looking at Contemporary American Art, and The American Eye: Eleven Artists of the Twentieth Century. Sandra Jordan lives in New York.