TORONTO – Theatre mogul David Mirvish announced plans this week to work with renowned Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry to re-develop a stretch of King Street West.
The proposal includes tearing down the famed Princess of Wales Theatre and replacing it with what Mirvish called not three condos towers, but “three sculptures.”
Gehry, the man responsible for designing the structures, was born in Toronto in 1929 and lived at 15 Beverly St – a building that was recently demolished. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947 and studied architecture at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1954.
He then studied city planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
After completing his education, Gehry began a critically-acclaimed architecture career designing buildings around the world, including Canada – most notably the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Some of Gehry’s most well-known designs include the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, the Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles, the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Mississippi, and the Cinémathèque Française in Paris.
A 2003 inductee to the Order of Canada, Gehry has received several international awards for his architecture, including the 1989 Prizker Architecture Prize – considered to be the premiere award in architecture according to a biography of Gehry distributed in Toronto on Monday.
Gehry has also been awarded the 1998 National Medal of Arts, the 1999 AIA Gold Medal, and the 2007 Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology.
He has also received 14 honorary doctorates from various universities including the University of Toronto and Harvard University.
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