Mindset Los Angeles: Frank Gehry and the Cool School

3 min read

From 27 June 2026 to 10 January 2027, the Marta Herford is hosting an exhibition that takes a close look: “Mindset Los Angeles” brings together Frank Gehry’s early work with the legendary Cool School of Los Angeles. Two scenes that influenced one another in the 1960s and whose dialogue continues to redefine the boundary between fine art and architecture to this day.

Danziger Studio and Residence, Los Angeles, California, 1963–1965, © Frank Gehry, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2017.M.66)

Los Angeles was a laboratory, not a metropolis.

In the late 1950s, an art scene emerged around the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles that deliberately set itself apart from New York. Larry Bell, Wallace Berman, Craig Kauffman, Edward Kienholz and Ed Ruscha worked with industrial materials, using light as a medium and exploring perception as a theme.

These approaches gave rise to the Light and Space and Finish Fetish movements, which were later grouped under the term ‘L.A. Look’. Art critic Philip Leider coined the name ‘Cool School’ for this scene. All this was made possible by affordable studios in industrial estates, the city’s expansive layout and the distinctive light of the Pacific coast.

A reception for artists, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1968, © Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Archives, photograph: Julian Wasser

Gehry’s architecture grows out of this atmosphere.

Frank Gehry was part of this scene, not merely as an observer. His use of found, inexpensive and often raw materials such as corrugated iron, plywood, wire mesh and clinker bricks is clearly evident in his early buildings.

His Gehry Residence in Santa Monica, created in 1978 by converting an existing bungalow, remains a key work to this day: a built assemblage that never quite reaches a finished state and derives its power precisely from this. The parallels with the works of Kienholz or Rauschenberg are evident.

Gemini G.E.L. Offices and Residences, Los Angeles, California, USA, 1976–1979, © Frank Gehry, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2017.M.66)

Over 150 works, seven projects, one dialogue.

The exhibition brings together works from the Schürmann Collection, European museums, private estates and galleries, featuring seven projects by Gehry, including design sketches, models and photographs. It reveals formal parallels, shared material languages and a network of friendships and studio discussions that had long since transcended the traditional distinction between fine art and architecture.