Gehry Residence Floor Plan Direct

The Gehry Residence floor plan is celebrated for several unique spatial strategies:

The layout of the Gehry Residence is best understood as a "house within a house." Rather than demolishing the existing two-story Dutch Colonial home, Gehry chose to leave the original structure mostly intact and build a new, fragmented shell around it.

While the old house is orthogonal, the new exterior walls enter the second floor plan at jarring angles. One wall of the master bedroom leans inward. The closet is a triangular wedge. Gehry famously said he wanted the residents to feel like they were "inside a pair of pliers."

Find of the original 1978 floor plan blueprints.

The bedrooms and family spaces on this level interact directly with the new architectural skin. Windows pierce through the corrugated metal wrap at unusual angles, offering framed, unconventional views of the surrounding Santa Monica neighborhood. gehry residence floor plan

The upper level of the Gehry Residence contains the private quarters, including the bedrooms and bathrooms. While it maintains more of the original house's footprint than the ground floor, it is equally impacted by Gehry’s deconstructive interventions. Master Bedroom and Additions

Moving up to the first floor, the floor plan shifts toward a more private, yet equally fragmented, arrangement of spaces.

Unlike a normal floor plan that draws a single, clean outer wall, Gehry’s plan shows fragmented boundaries. He removed the rear wall of the existing living room and extended the house outward using unconventional materials (plywood, corrugated metal, chain-link fencing). The floor plan looks like a house that exploded and was hastily put back together.

If you are studying the layout for a design project, focus on the —the areas where the original house ends and the new materials begin. That tension is where the brilliance of the project truly lives. The Gehry Residence floor plan is celebrated for

Understanding the Gehry Residence floor plan is to decode the birth of one of architecture's most important movements.

The floor plan of the Gehry Residence is organized across two distinct levels, each telling a specific part of the architectural story.

The additions created an open, somewhat chaotic layout that flows from the original kitchen and dining areas into newly created, angled spaces. 3. Top Floor and Exterior Integration

The Gehry Residence in Santa Monica, California, designed by architect Frank Gehry for his family in 1978, stands as a premier example of Deconstructivist architecture. Rather than building a new structure from scratch, Gehry wrapped a traditional, two-story Dutch Colonial house built in 1920 with a radical envelope of unconventional materials like corrugated metal, chain-link fencing, and raw plywood. The resulting floor plan is a masterclass in spatial tension, colliding the predictable, organized past with an explosive, non-linear present. The Core Concept: A House Within a House The closet is a triangular wedge

At the west end, hovering over the garage, sits the primary bedroom. On the , this is distinct because it is the only room wrapped entirely in glass block and corrugated metal. It functions like a modernist cube dropped onto a wreck. The bed sits facing a wall of glass block that turns the morning light into a pixelated haze.

The Gehry Residence floor plan is now recognized as a seminal piece of design history. In 2012, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) awarded the residence its prestigious Twenty-Five Year Award, acknowledging its lasting impact on architecture. It remains a pilgrimage site for architecture students and enthusiasts, studied as an early and powerful example of Deconstructivism in residential design.

“Let it fall where the wall tells it to,” he said, not looking up from his tracing paper.