FRANK OWEN GEHRY (Toronto, 1929) for Knoll. Hat Trick armchair in bent and interlocking maple wood strips. Manufactured by Knoll International, USA, with stamp. Light marks of use. Measurements: 85 x 59 x 56 cm. Seat height 46 cm. Frank Gehry was born in Toronto and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1954 and began working full time with Victor Gruen Associates, where he had been apprenticing part-time while still in school. He was admitted to Harvard Graduate School of Design to study urban planning. When he returned to Los Angeles, he rejoined Gruen where he stayed until 1960. In 1961 he moved to Paris, where he worked in the studio of André Rémondet. He remained in the French capital for a year, during which time he studied the works of Le Corbusier and other French and European architects, as well as existing Romanesque churches in France. In 1962 Gehry returned to LA and opened his architectural practice in L.A. With magnificent buildings such as the Guggenheim Bilbao Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the new Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Gehry has changed the nature and spirit of contemporary architecture. Yet the world’s best-known living architect has also enjoyed a prolific career as a designer of artful and functional objects, ranging from furniture to jewelry, that even at smaller scale are as lively and captivating as his architectural designs. In 1972 Gehry introduced a series of corrugated cardboard furniture under the name Easy Edges. The Easy Edges were a great success and brought Gehry overnight fame as a furniture designer. Frank Gehry came to Knoll in 1989 with an idea for a new generation of bentwood furniture inspired by the simple bushel basket. After three years of experimentation and exploration, the collection was debuted in the Frank Gehry: New Furniture Prototypes show at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Each piece is named after a different hockey term such as Power Play, Cross Check and Hat Trick. Inspired by the surprising strength of the apple crates he played on as a child, Frank Gehry created his thoroughly original collection of bentwood furniture. The ribbon-like designs transcend the conventions of style by exploring, as the great modernists did, the essential challenge of deriving form from function. Frank Gehry has taught at several American art academies, design schools and universities and in 2011 he became a professor at the University of Southern California - and has received several honorary doctorates.