Frank Gehry, whose daring and whimsical creations of leaning towers and sweeping sheets of curved metal such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, made him a superstar in the world of architecture, died on Friday. He was 96.

Meaghan Lloyd, Gehry’s chief of staff, confirmed his death in an email to Reuters, writing that Gehry died “earlier this morning at his home in Santa Monica after a brief respiratory illness.”

Gehry’s most memorable and riotous creations often looked as if they had recently collapsed in an artistic manner or were in the process of doing so. They were lauded as works of genius or reviled as self-indulgent messes.

His works were so fantastical that sometimes even he was not sure what he had wrought, as was the case with the Bilbao museum.

“You know, I went there

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