Architectural leaders join Frank Gehry to form strategic alliance dedicated to transforming the building industry through technology

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Gehry Technologies (GT), a global leader in applying technology to building industry challenges, today announced that Co-founder and Chairman, Frank Gehry, has brought together the world’s most distinguished architects and designers to form a strategic alliance furthering his vision to transform the building industry and the practice of design. As part of today’s announcement, this core group of renowned architects will also serve on Gehry Technologies’ board of advisors.

“The building industry has been slowly but steadily moving toward minimizing individual responsibility and away from producing architecture that solves clients’ and communities’ problems,” offered Frank Gehry. “I am dedicated to giving architects better control of the process so they can deliver the fruits of their imagination, which is what our clients expect. I have gathered a group of my friends together who believe in this mission as much as I do and who can help me find the solutions that will ultimately lead to better buildings throughout the world.”

The alliance intends to enable new approaches to design through technology, to create more effective industry processes and a higher quality built environment. By applying and innovating new technology solutions to old problems such as waste, delay, and miscommunication, this new alliance will lead the process change that the AEC industry needs to confront future challenges. The group represents a new type of professional organization for the 21st century, one which embraces the possibility of technology to empower design. The alliance will work together to drive technology innovations that support the central role of design in the creation of culture.

This group will work collectively with GT to realize and demonstrate better ways of achieving project outcomes: higher quality, more efficient, and cost effective projects. Most importantly, the alliance wants to ensure a context for professional work where the best designs and the best facilities can be realized. GT’s management team—led by CEO Dayne Myers—will be bolstered with the unprecedented experience and strategic guidance of the world’s leading architects, builders and visionaries. They will test, use and support emerging GT innovations and high-profile projects; participate in marketing and public relations initiatives; and catalyze AEC industry change.

“We are honored to add such legendary expertise and industry thought leadership to the GT advisory team,” said Dayne Myers. “Their combined experience, ideas and insights will be instrumental in shaping our offerings to the market. This kind of resource is truly invaluable toward shaping our growth and leadership moving forward.”

Initial Alliance and Board members include:

•David Childs is the Chairman Emeritus of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). He is a graduate of Deerfield Academy, Yale College and the Yale School of Art and Architecture. Mr. Childs has served as the Chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission and the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts in Washington, both Presidential appointments. Completed notable projects include: 1976 Washington Mall master plan and Constitution Gardens, Washington DC; headquarters for the National Geographic and The U.S. News and World Report, Washington DC; JFK International Arrivals Building, New York; the United States Embassy, Ottawa, Canada; the Time Warner headquarters at Columbus Circle as well as 7 World Trade Center, the first tower rebuilt at Ground Zero in New York after 9/11. Mr. Childs is best known for his redesign of the “Freedom Tower,” now the new One World Trade Center in New York.

•Massimo Colomban is the Founder of Permasteelisa.com Group, which since 1998 has become the world leader in Architecture Building Envelopes. Colomban was president and managing director of Sviluppo Italia Veneto, of Vega Park in Venice. He bought, restored and relaunched CastelBrando.it and other international societies. Mr. Colomban is the first Australian Honoree Consul in Venice. He is a professor of architecture and has lectured all over the world including the school of Architecture Politecnico Leonardo in Milan and has served on the Board of Overseers School of Architecture at Harvard University, Graduate Design School. He also created the Digital Media and Tourism District in Veneto (MDM and MDTV) with 2,000 other companies and is among the founders of Symbola. Today Colomban is a partner of IAG—Italian Angels for Growth—investing in startup ideas and enterprises. Since May of 2009, Colomban has been USAF Aviano Honorary Commander, 724th AMS.

•Frank Gehry was raised in Toronto, Canada and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. Mr. Gehry received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954, and he studied City Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In subsequent years, Mr. Gehry has built an architectural career that has spanned five decades and produced public and private buildings in America, Europe and Asia. His work has earned Mr. Gehry several of the most significant awards in the architectural field, including the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture, the Pritzker Prize, the Wolf Prize in Art (Architecture), the Praemium Imperiale Award, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award, the National Medal of Arts, the Friedrich Kiesler Prize, the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, and the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal.

Notable projects include: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the DZ Bank Building in Berlin; Nationale-Nederlanden Building in Prague; the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and BP Bridge in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois; Maggie’s Centre, a cancer patient center in Dundee, Scotland; Hotel Marques de Riscal in El Ciego, Spain; Lou Ruvo Brain Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada; the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida; Princeton University Peter B. Lewis Science Library in Princeton, New Jersey; Art Gallery of Ontario Renovation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California. Projects under construction include the Signature Theatre in New York City; the 8 Spruce Street Residential Tower located in New York City; the Make it Right Foundation in New Orleans, Louisiana and the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi. Mr. Gehry is also completing design work on the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Foundation Louis Vuitton Museum in Paris, France; LUMA Foundation in Arles, France and the University of Technology, Sydney in Sydney, Australia.

•Zaha Hadid is founder of Zaha Hadid Architects. She was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 and is internationally known for both theoretical and academic work. Ms. Hadid’s interest lies in the rigorous interface between architecture, landscape, and geology as her practice integrates natural topography and human-made systems, leading to experimentation with cutting-edge technologies. Her work of the past 30 years was the subject of a critically-acclaimed retrospective exhibition at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2006, London’s Design Museum in 2007 and the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy in 2009. Her notable projects include: the London Aquatics Centre (2011), Riverside Museum in Glasgow (2011), Guangzhou Opera House (2010), Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi (2010), MAXXI Museum in Rome (2009), among many others. TIME Magazine included her in the 2010 list of the “Most Influential People in the World.”

•Greg Lynn is known for designing the New York Presbyterian Church in Queens, New York, along with Douglas Garofalo and Michael McInturf, which used vector-based animation software in its design conception. He was profiled by TIME Magazine in a projection of 21st century innovators in the field of architecture and design and is a professor of architecture at UCLA and the Applied Arts University in Vienna.

•Laurie Olin is a distinguished teacher, author, and one of the most renowned landscape architects practicing today. Mr. Olin studied civil engineering at the University of Alaska and pursued architecture at the University of Washington, where Richard Haag encouraged him to focus on landscape. He has guided, from vision to realization, many of OLIN’s signature projects, which span the history of the studio from Bryant Park in New York City to the Brancusi Ensemble in Romania. Recent projects include Simon and Helen Director Park in Portland and the new Barnes Foundation Art Education Center in Philadelphia.

Mr. Olin is currently practice professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught for thirty years, and is former chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and recipient of the 1998 Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Design Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2005.

•Wolf D. Prix was born in Vienna in 1942 and is a co-founder, Design Principal, and CEO of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU which is active in architecture, urban planning, design, and art. After various international teaching assignments, he became professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in 1993 where he directed the Studio Prix and served as Dean of the Institute for Architecture and as Vice-Rector of the University until October 2011. He still remains Dean of the Institute for Architecture. Mr. Prix received numerous awards including the Great Austrian State Award, the nomination Officier de l’ordre des arts et des letters, the Gold Medal for merits to the federal state of Vienna, the Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education, RIBA Jencks Award as well as the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art amongst others. COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s architectural designs have been featured in many books, museums and collections worldwide and have also received numerous international awards. Most recent projects are the Busan Cinema Center in Busan, the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, the House of Music in Aalborg, the European Central Bank’s new headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, the Dalian International Conference Center in Dalian, the Museum of Contemporary Art & Planning Exhibition in Shenzhen, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, Baku as well as the Martin Luther Church in Hainburg.

•David Rockwell is the founder of Rockwell Group, the award winning, cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice based in New York City with satellite offices in Madrid and Shanghai. Rockwell harbored a fascination with immersive environments, public space and theater long before turning his attention to architecture. He brought these passions to his architecture training at Syracuse University where he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree and to his studies at the Architectural Association in London. Rockwell and his 140-person firm focus on a diverse array of projects that range from hotels to interactive technology design, restaurants to airport terminals and Broadway set designs to consumer products. Projects include W Union Square and Paris-Opèra; Imagination Playground; The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas; the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center; “Hall of Fragments,” the entrance installation to the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale; the Kodak Theatre (Los Angeles); set design for 81st and Emmy-award winning 82nd Annual Academy Awards; Hotel Bel Air (California); the Jet Blue terminal at JFK International Airport; the Broadway musical Hairspray; and Nobu restaurants worldwide.

•Moshe Safdie is a renowned international architect, urban planner, and author whose design philosophy stresses close attention to the cultural essence of a particular place, the inherent “buildability” of a project, and the overall impact a building will have on the people who use and live around it. His work first came to public attention with Habitat ’67, which pioneered the design and implementation of prefabricated units for living. Since then, he has designed many other buildings that have become beloved landmarks, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem, the Salt Lake City Public Library, and the National Gallery of Canada. His recent work includes the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort in Singapore, the headquarters of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Mr. Safdie, who was on the faculty at Harvard University through the 1980s, is the author of many articles and books, including Beyond Habitat, Form and Purpose, and The City After the Automobile. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Order of Canada and the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. His firm, Safdie Architects, is based in Boston, with offices in Jerusalem, Toronto, and Singapore.

•Matthias Schuler is one of the managing directors of TRANSSOLAR Energietechnik in Stuttgart. Born in 1958, he is educated as a mechanical engineer at University Stuttgart. In 1992 he founded the company TRANSSOLAR Climate Engineering in Stuttgart. TRANSSOLAR’S focus is on new energy saving and comfort optimizing strategies by an integral approach in building design.

Nowadays – with 50 employees in Stuttgart, Munich and New York – Mr. Schuler works on national and international projects with architects like Kazuyo Sejima, Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Jean Nouvel and Renzo Piano. Since 2001 teaching as a visiting professor at the Graduated School of Design, Harvard University, he became Adjunct Professor for Environmental Technologies in 2008.

•Patrik Schumacher has been a designer at Zaha Hadid Architects since 1988. He is a partner and senior designer of the practice as well as a co-author and project partner on a series of major projects such as the MAXXI: National Centre of Contemporary Art and Architecture in Rome, the BMW Central Building in Leipzig and the Dubai Opera House. He is registered with the Architect’s Registration Board, and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Mr. Schumacher studied architecture at the University of Stuttgart and at the Southbank University in London. He completed his architectural diploma and received his degree from Stuttgart University in 1990. He also studied philosophy at both Bonn London Universities. In 1999 he received his doctoral degree Dr. Phil. at the Institute for Cultural Sciences at the University of Klagenfurt.

•Ben van Berkel is the co-founder of UNStudio (United Network), a network of architectural specialists, urban development and infrastructure specialists. He is a professor and has lectured and taught at many architectural schools around the world. Mr. van Berkel has served as Visiting Professor at Columbia University, Princeton University and Harvard University. In 2011, Mr. van Berkel was appointed the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Central to his teaching is the inclusive approach of architectural works integrating virtual and material organization with engineering constructions. He has won numerous personal and professional awards for his contributions to the field of architecture.

•Richard Saul Wurman, spurred by the dance between his curiosity and ignorance, has sought ways to make the complex clear. He has now written, designed and published 82 books on topics ranging from football to health care to city guides, but he likes to say that they all spring from the same place – his ignorance.

Described by Fortune magazine as an “intellectual hedonist” with a “hummingbird mind,” Mr. Wurman has been shaped by an epiphany had as a young man: ignorance and embracing the understanding of what it is like to not understand. Mr. Wurman created the TED conference in 1984, bringing together many of America’s clearest thinkers in the fields of technology, entertainment and design. Taking place in September 2012, his latest project, the WWW.WWW Conference, will be a gathering of the greatest, most interesting and curious minds engaged in immersive and improvised conversation.

The advisors will come together today for their inaugural meeting, which will take place at the Marketing Center at 7 World Trade Center in New York. Discussion topics will include: demonstrations of new GT technologies and initiatives; the future of design; and the role of technology in design.

The board of advisors will continue to meet virtually on a monthly basis, with an annual in-person session.