Gehry Residence Floor — Plan
Deconstructing the Gehry Residence: How a Floor Plan Rewrote the Rules of Home Design
When you think of Frank Gehry, you probably imagine the titanium swirls of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao or the dramatic sails of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. But before the global fame, there was a small, pink house in Santa Monica, California—a bold experiment that started with a very unusual floor plan.
📐 Quick Reference: Gehry Residence Floor Plan Specs
- Original Structure: 1,600 sq ft (Dutch Colonial)
- Added Space: 1,200 sq ft (Angular additions)
- Signature Material on Plan: Plywood, glass, chain-link
- Key Spatial Move: Old exterior walls become interior walls of the new house.
- Best Feature: The glass walkway that visually separates the private bedrooms from the public living areas.
If you are studying the blueprint, pay attention to the windows. They are not placed for symmetry. They are placed to frame specific views of the neighbors' houses—views that Gehry then distorted by angling the framing studs. The floor plan dictates exactly where your eye will stop. gehry residence floor plan
Spatial Organization and Flow
The layout of the Gehry Residence defies the open-plan modernism popularized by Mies van der Rohe. Instead, it offers a fragmented, complex circulation path. Deconstructing the Gehry Residence: How a Floor Plan
- First Floor: Original Living Room (quiet, dark, traditional)
- The Ladder: A choreography of climbing (uncomfortably steep by modern code)
- Mezzanine Level: A glass corridor overlooking the old house
4. The Master Bedroom "Cube" Upstairs, the floor plan reveals a glass-enclosed master bedroom that protrudes out over the driveway. It acts as a transparent observatory. On paper, it looks vulnerable (glass walls on three sides), but in function, it offers a panoramic frame of the mundane suburban street—turning neighbors’ lawns into art. Original Structure: 1,600 sq ft (Dutch Colonial) Added
- Asymmetrical facades: The exterior facades of the house are asymmetrical and feature a mix of materials, including wood, steel, and glass.
- Steel framing: The house was one of the first residential projects to use steel framing, which allowed for greater flexibility and experimentation with design.
