In recent years Frank Gehry has served as a architecture  professor at Yale, Columbia and USC, and serves on the board of architecture at USC.  Gehry was the 1989 recipient of the prestigious Pritzker Prize which is an annual award honoring a living architect “whose built work demonstrates combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.”  Gehry has also played himself on tv shows like the Simpsons.  Gehry’s recent and ongoing projects include a new Guggenheim facility in Abu Dhabi, the new Facebook headquarters in California and a memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington, D.C., slated to be constructed at the foot of Capitol Hill.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was complete in October 1977 and took Gehry about 4 years to build.  The museum was created a curve on the Nervion and helped revitalize the culture and leisure around the river banks of the city.  Gehry used some advanced technology like CATIA to help with the mathematical designs of the building. CATIA was built as an aerospace technology but was transformed to help with the construction.  Gehry used titanium as the outside metal sheet of the museum because of it behavior in different elements.  The 33,000 extremely thin titanium sheets provides a rough and organic effect, adding to the material’s color changes depending on the weather and light conditions.  The museum was also built with limestone and glass to help the building come together.  The building has become and iconic building of not only Spain and and the world.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall was built finished on October 23, 2003 and has received heavy praise for its unique design and amazing acoustics.  The huge sweeping metallic surfaces have been associated with Gehry’s signature style.  Lilian Disney donated 50 Million dollars to the project in honor of her husband Walt Disney.  The project had a tough road to being finished, especially when the project was shut down in 1994.  But was started up again 2 years later thanks to a press and fund raising campaign.  The design of the inside of the building minimizes the social hierarchy within the audience.  Gehry used a 1/10 scale model of the auditorium to help set up the acoustics with help of some acoustic experts.  The hall was made in hopes of a catalysts for LA’s  downtown.  Overall the concert hall is considered one of the best of its kind and has received a lot of praise for its incredible design.

Frank Gehry is a Pritzker Prize–winning architect that was born in Canada and now lives in Los Angeles.  Gehry was the architect behind one of the greatest buildings made the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.  Gehry was a product of USC and went on the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  Gehry didn’t start his own firm until 1962 after stints in Los Angeles and Paris.  Gehry has designed many famous buildings including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Loyola Law School, The Olympic Fish Pavillion and the DZ Bank Building.  These buildings were built all around the world and all have a unique design to them that make them stand out from what most people would expect.  Gehry has been a staple in the architecture community for the past 5 decades.

Growing up my dad has always been a huge poker player and taught me how to play at a young age and I feel in love with the game instantly and when I turned 18 I immediately drove up to Winstar to play poker.  When I walked into the casino I was amazed by the size of the casino and how many slot machines where in the casino.  The casino does a great job of not letting you realize how long you have been in the casino by its lack of windows.  The lack of window and abundance of flashing lights help you stay up and stay in the casino and spend money.  The casino is very well made into a money making machine with plenty of restaurants in the casino you never have to leave to eat.  Winstar does a great job of making sure there is always a place to go spend your money.  Winstar also does a good job with there layout with a variety of different “cities” that you can go to and play different games.  I love going to Winstar because there is so many things to do from blackjack and poker to roulette and craps.  Winstar has always given me mixed emotions based on how much money I leave with that night but is always a fun place to go with friends.

Growing up I always played baseball competitively during the summer and there was one place that I always remembered playing at it was called big league dreams.  It was a building that had 8 fields all turf and modeled after old and current big league stadiums.  With 2 big inside concession stands with inside viewing of all the fields.  The fields and concession stands always made me excited to play.  I remember our coach hitting balls just barely hitting the ball over the fence so we can try to rob a home run just like the major leaguers.  The fields always were well put together and because of the turf they were always able to play on them.  The concession stands were one big area in between 4 fields with glass on all 4 sides so you could watch the game.  But inside it was very similar to a Dave and Busters in which they have games and a bar.  Then they had a giant park in the middle of the complex as well.  Everyone from the parents to the players always had a good time going to the games and spending the day there.  Every time my team played there we always had the bests of times there and is where I had some of my best baseball memories from pitching a no hitter to hitting a walk off home run.  Big League Dreams will always have a special place in my heart and will always be one of my favorite places that I have ever played baseball at.

In middle school we had a gym that was detached from the school where my middle school held all the basketball games, pep rallies and volleyball games.  The building was recently built and was the place that everyone wanted to play at.  Having a building that was detached from the school made us feel as if we were playing at a high school or a big arena.  We had so much fun in that arena from playing in the student teacher game to playing our rival middle school.  The big blue bleachers on both sides gave us the feeling of an arena especially during games when they were normally pretty full.  The concession stand that was in the front of the building just added to the spectacle that we felt when we were young and felt special to play in such a nice arena compared to other middle schools.  The arena brought me a lot of happiness from winning the 3 on 3 basketball tournament to crossing over my favorite teacher in front of the whole student body.  The gym always provided me with happiness even when we had to be there at 6 am for practice, it always woke me up and put me in a good mood.

(sorry could not find a picture of the outside)