The upstairs layout is punctuated by strategically placed windows that look down into the new ground-floor additions. From the main bedroom area, occupants can look through the exposed framing into the glass-enclosed kitchen below, weaving the two levels together. Key Features of the Floor Plan Layout
By analyzing the Gehry Residence floor plan, we gain insight into how Gehry challenged the traditional boundaries of domestic space, privacy, and material expression. The Concept of the House Within a House gehry residence floor plan
Gehry added approximately 800 square feet by wrapping the house on three sides—north, east, and south. This new zone serves as a literal and metaphorical bridge between the original domestic space and the outside world. The upstairs layout is punctuated by strategically placed
Unlike the traditional wood flooring of the old house, the kitchen floor is paved with asphalt, intentionally blurring the line between the outdoor streetscape and the indoor domestic space. The Concept of the House Within a House
Frank Gehry’s personal home in Santa Monica, California, stands as a foundational monument of Deconstructivist architecture. Built around an existing 1920s Dutch Colonial gambrel-roofed house, the 1978 renovation shattered traditional concepts of residential design. By wrapping the original structure in industrial materials like corrugated metal, chain-link fencing, and plywood, Gehry created a complex dialogue between the old and the new.
The floor plan of the Gehry Residence rejects the modernist open plan (Mies, Le Corbusier) and the traditional closed plan (Colonial revival). Instead, it proposes a —where old and new, rough and smooth, private and public meet at unexpected angles. To read this plan is to understand that for Gehry, architecture is not about perfect functionality but about provoking a heightened awareness of space, light, and the act of dwelling itself.
The 1978 Gehry Residence was a precursor to the Deconstructivist movement of the 1980s. Its "discontinuous juxtaposition" (as described by Bernard Tschumi) challenged the very idea of a "machine for living" and replaced it with a complex, collage-like approach to design.