The entrepreneurial mindset of Frank Gehry (1929-2025)

As an eager young seventeen-year-old flicking through the A to Z Big Book of Careers in the Career’s Service office at school, I didn’t get beyond ‘A’ - Astronaut and Architect caught my eye, but Mrs Johnson redirected me to Accountant and Actuary and my trajectory for a life in numbers and not space or building design was set.

However, I kept a keen interest in architecture and there were many buildings in Manchester to admire - Central Library, Victoria Station, St Mary’s Vicarage (The Hidden Gem) and John Rylands Library. I took an interest in contemporary and historical architects and their contribution including Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Renzo Piano, Philip Johnson and my favourite, Frank Gehry.

Gehry died over the weekend, aged 96. Frank Gehry was a world-renowned architect known for his bold, sculptural, and often gravity-defying designs. His work is associated with Deconstructivism, a style characterised by fragmented forms, unconventional materials, and buildings that appear to twist or ripple. He designed buildings that became cultural landmarks - check out these iconic buildings the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Reacting like many of his contemporaries, against the cold and often formulaic Modernist buildings that dotted many cityscapes, Gehry was a spirited entrepreneurial thinker, moving boundaries and experimenting with unusual expressive designs, searching for a personal vocabulary. In his early work he built unique, quirky structures that emphasised humanity and acted as local cultural catalysts. He was a Titan of contemporary architecture. Gehry practised architecture for nearly eight decades.

He was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's highest honour, in 1989 - the citation for his Pritzker Prize compared him to Picasso - on top of dozens of other recognitions, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In his citation, awarding US president Barack Obama said that Gehry spent his life rethinking shapes and mediums, seemingly the force of gravity itself. The idea of what architecture could be, he decided to upend. Frank's work teaches us that while buildings may be sturdy and fixed to the ground, like all great art they can lift our spirits, they can soar and broaden our horizons.

Philip Johnson called the Guggenheim Bilbao the greatest building of our time and Gehry the greatest architect we have today. In the 1980s, Gehry's commissions proliferated. He designed dozens of high-profile museums, including the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, and the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris. He designed several residential buildings. His first skyscraper in New York was the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere when completed in 2011.

Even in his 90s, he was prolific, and his design for Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is scheduled to open later this year. His work has always been a statement of entrepreneurial thinking for me, a way of freeing space and daring design, a dialogue between light, movement and the human hand. A reminder that architecture just like any craft can hold emotion and imagination., not just functional straight lines.

An entrepreneurial visionary like Frank Gehry does not disappear. His passing is a profound loss, but a legacy that will keep inspiring architects around the world. Gehry’s mindset was as distinctive as his buildings - restless, curious, rebellious, and deeply human, sharing many facets and traits with any digital tech founder. Here are the key elements that shape how he thinks and works, very much adopting elements of the Lean Startup philosophy developed by Eric Reis, offering insight for startup founders:

1. Start with your vision: start with emotion, not forming a fixed idea of your product. Capture fluidity and spontaneity, not accuracy. Write a brief of emotional keywords to guide the design;; experiment and explore multiple options and variations which fit your vision; avoid dropping into functional definitions too early. I allow spontaneity, I don’t over-control the early stage. I aim to capture emotion before logic. Gehry Identified the feeling and energy he wanted the building to express.

2. Begin with Play. Gehry approached design like a sculptor. He started with sketches and loose, playful models, not rigid plans. Creativity begins in a state of freedom, not constraint, he said. He often started with very lose sketches, then hand-made paper or cardboard models, then evolved to digital tools. His emphasis was on shape, motion, and spatial drama rather than pure functionalism. His buildings rarely fit traditional geometric order, instead, they twist, fold, shimmer, or ripple.

3. Reject the obvious. A core Gehry mindset was don’t do what you’re supposed to do. He pushed against conventional architectural rules and clichés, preferring fresh, risky ideas to safe or conventional symmetry and order. He was comfortable with being criticised as part of his process. I prefer to pursue originality even if it feels risky was his mantra. Capture the spirit of your thinking.

4. Embrace imperfection Gehry embraced irregularity, asymmetry and roughness, a core principle of the Lean Startup in building a ‘scrappy’ first version of a startup product. He believed perfection was boring, and caused procrastination, whereas flaws can make architecture come alive and become defining features. Like any startup founder, Gehry accepted that the process was messy. Deconstruct and recompose.

5. Let emotion flow  Gehry didn’t work from an abstract personal philosophy, he aimed to create emotionally resonant, uplifting spaces. His goal was to ‘make people feel something’ not to prove a conceptual point from his own perspective or seek acclaim from fellow architects. The message for startup founders is to connect with your customers at an emotional level to share your innovation and ensure it resonates and has impact in terms of building a business based on your idea.

6. Human-centered focus. Behind the wild exteriors, Gehry’s mindset was deeply practical: the inside of his buildings were functional, calm, and enjoyable. Human experience comes first was a guiding principle, Gehry resisted architecture that looked good in theory but felts bad to inhabit. He focussed on how people move, gather, listen, and interact, emotional impact, not just visual drama of design. Ensure comfort, usability, and emotional impact were his user experience principles.

7. Curiosity over certainty. Gehry stayed curious, humble, and open to new ideas. He constantly experimented with materials and technologies, collaborating with artists, musicians, and digital modelers. When he didn’t know how to do something, he saw it as an opportunity, not a barrier. These traits relate to any startup founder seeking to learn and find a way forward.

8. Use technology as a tool, not a master. Gehry loved advanced digital modelling, but he never let software dictate design. The intuition of the hand and eye remains central; combine digital modelling with sculptural intuition; use digital tools to enable complex ideas was his philosophy. He embraced Ai but used it as a tool to help bring his original thinking to life, not as a surrogate designer.

9. Iterate relentlessly and refine (without conformity) Gehry’s outlandish goal for each project was to have a cultural impact as a result of his buildings, indeed the ‘Bilbao effect’ is recognised for the impact his Guggenheim deign had on the region. He was relentless in searching for the best outcome, testing ideas through physical and digital models, refining until the deign ‘felt right’. He also had a philosophy of simplifying where necessary without losing essence – all good lean startup principles for founders to adopt.

10. Resilience, persistence Gehry’s career was filled with rejection, mockery, and controversy. Early works were dismissed as ugly or strange. He kept going. He believed architects must defend their ideas. He is famously sceptical of architectural pretension, focussing on spontaneity and vitality, highlighting the creative journey, not just the final product. Like founders, believe in making the impossible possible.

Summary Gehry leaves a current and future legacy of stunning and memorable buildings, his core beliefs, philosophy and approach to his architectural craft bears the traits of an outstanding entrepreneur and offers insight for any startup founder with fundamental mindset elements that underpin entrepreneurial action.

The skill to generate new ideas, find unconventional solutions, and a readiness to take chances, but in a structured and evaluated way, not recklessly, were his hallmarks. A desire to constantly learn new things, explore new opportunities, and ask challenging questions are core attributes of an entrepreneur’s mindset that Gehry had in bundles.