Architect Frank Gehry, a colossus in his field known for gargantuan sculptural buildings of curved steel, including Disney Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has died, according to the architect's chief of staff.

Gehry was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1929 and died at his home in California on Dec. 4, according to Meaghan Lloyd, Gehry's chief of staff. He was 96. Lloyd said in an email that Gehry died "earlier this morning at his home in Santa Monica after a brief respiratory illness."

The world-renowned architect was raised in LA and became the most famous American architect since Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. The Harvard University dropout rose to prominence in the late 1980s. His signature style gained recognition worldwide with the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, a titan of a building that put both the architect and the city in northern Spain on the map.

Around the world, Gehry’s daring and whimsical postmodern creations became destinations, lauded as works of genius or criticized as incoherent monuments of self-indulgence.

Among Gehry’s critics: the architect himself.

"You know, I went there just before the opening and looked at it and said, 'Oh, my God, what have I done to these people?'" Gehry told Vanity Fair magazine about the museum in Bilbao. "It took a couple of years for me to start to like it, actually."

In 2010, a panel of experts put together by Vanity Fair cited the Bilbao museum as the most important work of architecture since 1980. Eminent architect Philip Johnson called it "the greatest building of our time" and Gehry "the greatest architect we have."

Still, Gehry flinched when he was called a "starchitect."

In addition to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the modern art museum in Bilbao, Gehry is known for the Fondation Louis Vuitton museum, which opened in 2014; an expansion to Facebook's campus in Menlo Park, California, opened in 2015; and New York City’s 8 Spruce residential tower, which was the city’s tallest residential building when it opened in 2011.

Contributing: Reuters.

This story was updated to add new information.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Architect Frank Gehry, known for his signature steel style, dies at 96

Reporting by Michael Loria, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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