What Famous Architects Did Before They Were Famous
Frank Gehry drove a delivery truck, Zaha Hadid studied mathematics, Norman Foster worked as a town hall clerk and Renzo Piano grew up on building sites. How four careers really started.
Luxom Studio · LUXOM Developments
· 2 min read · Last reviewed
Key takeaways
- Frank Gehry drove a delivery truck in Los Angeles while taking classes at Los Angeles City College, before studying architecture at the University of Southern California.
- Zaha Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before moving to London to study at the Architectural Association.
- Norman Foster left school at sixteen, worked as a clerk in the Manchester City Treasurer's office and did national service in the Royal Air Force before studying architecture.
- Renzo Piano was born into a family of builders in Genoa and grew up on his father's construction sites.
Editor's note
Before they were famous, they did something else. This is the guide we send to anyone who comments ORIGINS on our reel: how four of the most influential architects alive in the last half century actually got started.
Frank Gehry Drove a Delivery Truck
Frank Gehry was born in Toronto and moved with his family to Los Angeles as a teenager. To support himself he drove a delivery truck while taking classes at Los Angeles City College, before studying architecture at the University of Southern California.
Decades later he designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the New World Center in Miami Beach. The early years mattered: Gehry has always built with ordinary materials and a sense of how things are actually assembled.
Zaha Hadid Studied Mathematics First
Zaha Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before she moved to London to study architecture at the Architectural Association. The geometry in her later buildings, from Baku to One Thousand Museum in Miami, is easier to understand with that background in mind.
Her story continues in our article on Zaha Hadid and Miami.
Norman Foster Started as a Clerk
Norman Foster grew up in Manchester and left school at sixteen. He worked as a clerk in the Manchester City Treasurer's office and did national service in the Royal Air Force before studying architecture at the University of Manchester and later at Yale.
His firm went on to design some of the defining buildings of London, including 30 St Mary Axe, known as the Gherkin.
Renzo Piano Grew Up on Building Sites
Renzo Piano was born in Genoa into a family of builders and spent his childhood on his father's construction sites. He has often described himself as someone who learned architecture by watching things being made.
He went on to co-design the Centre Pompidou in Paris and later The Shard in London, and won the Pritzker Prize in 1998. His studio also designed Eighty Seven Park in Miami Beach.
None of Them Started at the Top
What these four careers share is time spent close to how things are actually built, before anyone called them famous. That is the kind of story we respect, and it is how we work on every residence in Coconut Grove, Miami: the same team that designs a house is on site while it gets built.
If this kind of story interests you, our list of the books self-taught architects actually read is a good next step.
Pull quote
None of them started at the top. All of them learned how buildings actually get made.
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Questions about what famous architects did before they became architects
01What job did Frank Gehry have before architecture?
After his family moved from Toronto to Los Angeles, Gehry drove a delivery truck while taking classes at Los Angeles City College. He went on to study architecture at the University of Southern California.
02What did Zaha Hadid study first?
She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before studying architecture at the Architectural Association in London. Our article on Zaha Hadid and Miami covers her later work.
03Did Norman Foster go to university right away?
No. Foster left school at sixteen, worked as a clerk in the Manchester City Treasurer's office and served in the Royal Air Force before studying architecture at the University of Manchester and later at Yale.
04How did Renzo Piano start?
Piano was born in Genoa into a family of builders and spent his childhood on his father's construction sites. He co-designed the Centre Pompidou, a story told in the buildings the world hated at first.
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Written by Luxom Studio · LUXOM Developments
The design and development studio behind LUXOM residences in Coconut Grove, Miami
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