2021 Kusske Lecture & Dialogue: Frank Gehry

On November 16, 2021 the Kusske Lecture & Dialogue Series hosted its inaugural event with Pritzker Prize Laureate Frank Gehry. Gehry discussed his career trajectory from the gliding steel of the Weisman Art Museum to the majestic Luma Arles Tower in conversation with Jennifer Yoos, FAIA, head of the School of Architecture, and CEO and Principal of VJAA.
 
Signatures of Gehry’s lifelong creative journey are inspirations from nature and experiments with materials, light, and movement. Collaborating with communities and working from the inside out, Gehry generates fluid forms realized in the “liquid architecture” of dazzlingly iconic buildings such as Dancing House in Prague, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and Fondation Louis Vuitton at the edge of Paris’s Jardin d’Acclimatation. Gehry’s work has been exhibited in museums including the Walker Art Center, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Vitra Design Museum, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
 
Following the conversation between Gehry and Yoos, panelists Brad Holschuh (Co-Director of the Wearable Technology Lab), Tejas Dhadphale (Associate Professor of Product Design) and Jordan Hedlund (MLA ’21, landscape designer) reflected on the intersections of creative vision and material innovation, taking inspiration from Gehry’s innovative designs.
 
About the Kusske Design Initiative
A generous commitment from Manitou Fund to the University of Minnesota’s College of Design honors the memory of distinguished alumnus Christopher Arthur Kusske (BLA ’78). The Kusske Design Initiative (KDI) instills his legacy through widely inclusive events and collaborations among a growing community of broadminded designers. Chris’s emphases on interdisciplinary dialogue, co-creativity, and respect for the natural world inspire solutions for planetary-scale issues. By combining values of environmental stewardship with the disciplinary spectrum that forms the college’s DNA, KDI programs and inquiries have transformative potential for the products we use and the environments we inhabit.