Frank Gehry – Water Fire and Mars Saturn

Frank Gehry, the Canadian–American architect who made magic with crumpled titanium and fish curves in buildings like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, has died. He was inspired by pop art, what he called ‘cheapskate aesthetic’, to create buildings that were almost art, almost sculpture – and at times an assemblage of a hardware store. His increasing use of the computer latterly was used to realise extraordinarily complex and innovative forms.

 Born 28 February 1929 in Toronto he was the son of Jewish immigrants, and moved to California in his late teens. After a stint as a lorry driver, he gained an architecture degree, did military service, and had a slow start in the building design field. By the mid 1980s he produced the California Aerospace Museum with a F104 Starfighter hovering over a giant door; and a restaurant, Rebecca’s, in Venice, California  featured giant trees, an octopus, alligator and several fish hanging about its interior.

 In the late 1990s the Bilbao Guggenheim put him on the world map and was hailed as the leading example of the new  computer-led design – a piece of urban sculpture, writhing along the riverbank, part palazzo, part ship. In two years, his museum was said to have added $400m to the city’s fortunes.

  Fish were a constant theme in his work which with a Pisces Sun and a creative Water Grand Trine with Pluto and a Scorpio Moon is maybe not surprising. He also significantly had an inspirational, attention-demanding Fire Grand Trine of Neptune in Leo trine Saturn in Sagittarius trine Venus in Aries, formed into a Kite by Saturn opposition Mars in Gemini, making Mars his driving planet. His Sun was also trine Pluto and sextile Jupiter in Taurus. He would rarely doubt his ideas or his ability to succeed. His Mercury in forward-looking Aquarius may have been on the focal point of a Fixed T square to Jupiter opposition his Scorpio Moon. His chart oozes confidence.

  Intriguingly Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi/British architect, recognised as a key figure in the architecture of the late-20th and early-21st century, 31 October 1950, had a marked Mars Saturn hard aspect in her chart like Gehry. She was a Sun, Mercury, Venus in Scorpio trine Uranus (Moon) in Cancer so a similarly Water-heavy chart to him. She had marginally less Fire though her Pluto in Leo trine Mars in Sagittarius would give her drive with Jupiter in Aquarius sextile Mars and opposition Pluto for confidence. Her Mars was also square Saturn in Virgo.

 Norman Foster, the UK architect, 1 June 1935, has a New Moon in Gemini square a creative Saturn in Pisces opposition Neptune, and trine Mars. He has his Mars on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Saturn sextile Uranus – so Mars Saturn is a key component of his talent.

 Mars Saturn gets a bad reputation as destructive and accident-prone or prone to abusive/cruel behaviour. But it must be its ability to concentrate energy and perhaps its associations with bones and structure which comes into play with architects. That plus the self-discipline which it also instils.  

 Frank Lloyd Wright, the American architect had a Mars square Saturn. Though oddly Le Corbusier, known for his ‘brutalist’ designs did not though his Saturn and Mars were both in Leo, widely separated – his North Node fell on the midpoint of Mars and Saturn.