Visionary US architect Frank Gehry is to get the career achievement award from the Venice Biennale next year, the board of the prestigious art and architecture showcase announced Friday.
The board said that the 79-year-old architect, whose works such as the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao have become tourist attractions, reflected the spirit of the 11th Architectural Show whose slogan is 'Out There: Architecture Beyond Building'.
''Frank Gehry transformed modern architecture,'' said Biennale Director Aaron Betsky.
''He freed it from the confines of the 'box' and the limits of common building practices.
''As experimental as the artistic practices that inspired it, Gehry's architecture is the true modern model for an architecture that goes beyond building''.
