Gehry Talks About Architecture and the Mind at Neuroscience Conference

by Meredith Banasiak, Assoc. AIA
Research Associate, Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture

Summary: AIA Gold Medal recipient Frank Gehry, FAIA, launched the 2006 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting on October 14 as this year’s “Dialogues Between Neuroscience and Society” series speaker at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. Gehry presented a slide lecture of his work and, significant to the convergence of architecture and neuroscience, then launched into a one-on-one conversation with leading neuroscientist Dr. Fred H. Gage and a Q&A session with the audience. “It is an especially timely and relevant milestone for the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture because our mission it is to foster intellectual links between neuroscientists and architects,” said 2002 AIA President and 2006 Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture President Gordon Chong, FAIA.

Gehry’s presentation drew an estimated crowd of 7,000. “For a non-scientist to attract that many people speaks to the success of Gehry’s lecture,” Society for Neuroscience President Stephen Heinemann said. “This is an experimental series looking at the top creative people in their field. We want to look at the best and get a feel for what our minds can do.”

A glimpse into Gehry’s mind
“There is a gear that turns and lights a light bulb and turns a something and energizes this hand, and it picks up a pen and intuitively gets a piece of white paper and starts jiggling and wriggling and makes a sketch. And the sketch somehow relates to all the stuff I took in,” joked Gehry. The architect spoke candidly about his feelings of “healthy insecurity” and credits them for “leaving no stone unturned” during design.

“I am always insecure. I am never in my mind guaranteed that it will be a good building,” Gehry said. “When I started in this profession, it was fraught with rules of things you shouldn’t do and can’t do, and that veil was lifted from my life by Dr. [Milton] Wexler [therapist] who persuaded me … to bring myself to it, to be myself.”

“I am never in my mind guaranteed that it will be a good building.”

“Informed intuition”
Gehry promoted the value of risk taking and free association, warning of the danger in being too prescriptive with the process: “We need to allow for intuitive impulses that are very informed. What enables you to find the cure for cancer is not to follow steps A, B, C … Some accidental thing in the laboratory will happen … You follow your intuition, it is an informed intuition, and you have the Eureka moment … For me, if I knew in advance where to go, I wouldn’t go there.”

Similar to a scientist’s approach towards experimental design, Gehry’s design decisions are not arbitrary and are grounded in knowledge about variables such as pro forma, budget, environment, and scale: “It is an informed intuition because I know the functional issues backwards and forwards,” he said.

“It is an informed intuition because I know the functional issues backwards and forwards.”

In this discussion of his creative process, Gehry’s words resonated with many neuroscientists in the room. “Several neuroscientists came away talking about some of the terms Gehry coined such as ‘informed intuition,’” commented Society for Neuroscience Executive Director Marty Saggese.

Gehry expressed reservation about translational applications between neuroscience and architecture, asserting that it might result in a “rule book” for the design profession. Responding to these concerns, Dr. Fred H. Gage, a Salk Institute neuroscientist and past president of the Academy of the Neuroscience for Architecture, explained: “We see the information that neuroscience will bring to architecture as offering another layer of knowledge to inform intuition, not adding a set of rules or barriers during the design process.”

Sharing cross-discipline knowledge
The neuroscientists were eager to translate Gehry’s work into their own language:

• Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, and acclimatized perception: “When the first models were shown to the people of Spain, there was a vigil of 300 people with candles protesting it … Now people hug me, thank me,” said Gehry. One neuroscientist suggested, “Perhaps the building triggers a reaction in humans similar to that of rats both drawn to and stressed by novelty, and subsequently experience a brain change resulting in acclimatization to the stimulus.” Gehry agreed that it is a case where the strange was assimilated.
• Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, and stress response: “Because of their novelty, your buildings, like the Walt Disney Concert Hall, stand out from the background of the other buildings in the city and can act as calming landmarks for those trying to navigate in strange territory,” asked neuroscientist Dr. Esther Sternberg of NIMH. “But at the same time, that novelty can be a trigger for the stress response when viewed close up, because the building doesn’t fit our expectations of what a building looks like. Do you incorporate any design features in your buildings to manage that potential stress reaction?” Gehry explained that he is aware that his buildings may be disorienting because they are so different, and therefore he incorporates a psychological “handrail” to help people orient themselves when they enter.
• “Crinkles and wrinkles” and emotional memory: Gehry pointed out “crinkles and wrinkles” as a characteristic feature of many of his buildings, including the DG Bank in Berlin; Maggie's Centre in Dundee, Scotland; and Beekman Street Tower, New York City. Gehry explained that the illusion of folded fabric “humanizes and engages us in a visceral way.” Neuroscience studies suggest the possibility that this imagery may solicit a synesthetic, visual-tactile response and trigger emotional memory, the result being that multiple and diverse neural responses are engaged yielding a “richer,” more salient memory of place.

Magic Trick … or cognitive gift?
Reflecting on the realization of his creative efforts, the buildings themselves, Gehry said: “I call it a magic trick. Bernini wrote about that. Religious people think it comes from ‘up there.’ Since I am not that way, I have to rely on magic.”

The neuroscientists present might speculate otherwise… a cognitive trick, perhaps.