On Friday the world-famous architect Frank Gehry (1929-2025) passed away in Santa Monica, USA. Best known to a mainstream audience for his Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Canadian-born American citizen has a plethora of works all over the world that pushed the boundaries of what is possible in architecture.
But did you know that the gentleman who passed away following a brief respiratory illness who designed Louis Vuitton foundation in Bois Bologne in Paris, also lent his pen to watchmaking on jewelry design?
In a 2024 interview I made with Mr. Gehry for The New York Times, the 1989 laureate of architecture’s finest award the Pritzker Prize, jokingly described his relationship with watches as “timely,” and said that watches and architecture “both help us synchronize with the world we live in and clarify the lives we live.”
Gehry’s first foray into watches was in the early 2000s, when utilized his talent – and handwriting – to a digital Fossil model, which was also followed by analogue models. ”It was a fun collaboration, but it was different from the level of engineering and precision on this watch,” he said, referring to one of his last creations in life, the 48.3-millimetre Louis Vuitton Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon De Genève Sapphire Frank Gehry.
This watch, whose case and dial were crafted from a single 200-kilo block of sapphire crystal, was inspired by the horizontal glass sails of the Seoul boutique that Gehry designed for Louis Vuitton. “We kind of abstracted that shape for this project. It’s very simple, but the way the light plays on the shapes makes the watch ever-changing,” he said to The New York Times of the 2024 creation.
In 2006 it was a watch gifted by Tiffany & Co. that sparked the collaboration with Mr. Gehry and the jeweler, resulting in a collection of free-flowing, sculptural designs.
Gehry will be remembered for his mischievousness translated into form: for instance, the shape of Guggenheim Bilbao was inspired by a crumpled-up napkin, and another building, in Prague, was inspired by a dancing couple. Such an unrelenting devotedness to personal imagination and intuition was said to be paired with personal uncertainness. But ever since Frank Gehry’s first building was realized in 1957 the world of architecture, and subsequently watch design, would never be the same.
Anders Modig Davin, Deputy editor in chief of Worldtempus has also reported on architecture since 2002.
