Frank Gehry, the Los Angeles architect who took inspiration from the work of artists more than from architecture history, and who used aerospace software to help liberate architecture from the right angle and the box, died on Dec.5, at age 96, following a brief respiratory illness. An iconoclast who built icons , Gehry produced flamboyant spectacles of extreme complexity that flirted with chaos. He created the most exuberant structures of his time—devilishly difficult to build designs that made motorists brake on the street, as though architecture’s function was to surprise and fascinate. But for all these apparent freedoms, Gehry was practical, delivering buildings on budget and on time; he paid great attention, for instance, to waterproofing.

Gehry was the recipient of prestigious cul

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