Weisman Art Museum-Frank Gehry

  The Weisman Art Museum was planned out by gesture drawings of Frank Gehry for three years, before built in November of 1993.  It is located near the Mississippi River and the University of Minnesota campus.  The museum is made of brushed stainless steel and terra-cotta colored brick.  Frank Gehry has made many memorable buildings, which are seen in Asia, North America, and Europe.  The Vitra International Furniture Museum in Weil am Rheim, Germany is a great building that has distincted his work from any other buildings.  The Weisman looks much like this building, which gives me the feeling he took the ideas from the Vitra International to design The Weisman.  A lot of Frank Gehry's buildings are thought out and planned by the location, where the building will be placed in nature, what other buildings around it look like, the use of the building and how it relates to the city and natural world surrounding it.  He likes to give three different categories to follow through with the design of the buildings: how they'll blend in, how they'll reflect the area, and how the building will contrast the area, which the Weisman does all three.  Frank Gehry had the intent of the building being noticed, and it did that when it first had gotten built.  When the building first opened, a total of 7,000 people showed up.  A lot of people refer to the Weisman as a "frozen waterfall," which portrays Frank Gehry very well, he loves ice hockey. 

 The Weisman always gives me a great feeling as passing it or entering it.  It's very exciting with all the different shapes, all the rectangles, triangles, curved and varied angles.  I love how one side blends in with the city's buildings around it, and the other side seems as though a sail boat off Mississippi River, which a lot of people also thought of this.  I also love how the artist made a building for seeing art.  Frank Gehry has so many great buildings throughout the world I'd love to go see, including his house, which is almost as crazy with angles and shapes as the Weisman.


Frank Gehry. Weisman Art Museum. Brushed stainless steel and terra-cotta colored bricks. 1993.
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