Gehry Partners chief of staff Meaghan Lloyd said that his death followed a brief respiratory illness.

Gehry recently designed the Louis Vuitton flagship store that will open in Beverly Hills’ Golden Triangle in 2029. Bernard Arnault, the Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton’s parent company, the luxury conglomerate LVMH, expressed his sorrow over Gehry’s passing.

“I am profoundly saddened by the passing of Frank Gehry, in whom I lose a very dear friend and for whom I shall forever retain boundless admiration,” Arnault said. “I owe to him one of the longest, most intense, and most ambitious creative partnerships I have ever had the privilege to experience. His oeuvre, crowned by the Pritzker Prize, is immense. He will remain a genius of lightness, transparency, and grace. Frank Gehry—who possessed an unparalleled gift for shaping forms, pleating glass like canvas, making it dance like a silhouette—will long endure as a living source of inspiration for Louis Vuitton as well as for all the Maisons of the LVMH group. With the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création, he bestowed upon Paris and upon France his greatest masterpiece, the highest expression of his creative power, commensurate with the friendship he bore our city and the affection he showed for our culture. My wife, my children, and I express our deepest condolences to his wife, Berta, and to his children.”

Born Frank Owen Goldberg on Feb. 28, 1929, in Toronto, Canada, Gehry moved with his parents to Los Angeles after finishing high school and enrolled in art and architecture classes at L.A. City College.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from USC in 1954, and that same year changed his last name to Gehry.

Gehry gained the attention of the design and architecture world thanks to his renovations of his own Santa Monica home, which he remodeled into a livable work of art using unexpected materials such as corrugated metal and chain link fencing.

He went on to become the most recognized American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright. He received international acclaim for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and many more structures.

In the hours following the announcement of his death, condolences and remembrances have poured in.

“Frank Gehry didn’t just design buildings—he created spaces that lift up artists and have brought generations of people together,” L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn posted on X. “His design of the SELA Cultural Center on the LA River will be a lasting gift to the families of Southeast LA. We’ve lost a giant. Thank you, Frank.”

In a statement, L.A. County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said that working alongside Gehry was “one of the great honors of my life.”

“Frank’s brilliance was matched only by his generosity of spirit, and his ability to see possibility where others saw limits transformed not only the County of Los Angeles and communities across the world, but all of us who had the privilege to work with him,” she said.

Gehry is survived by his wife, Berta, and four children.

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