You’ve probably heard that on December 5, 2025, one of the most striking, influential architects, Frank Gehry, passed away.
History
Interestingly, despite the fact that Gehry was born back in 1929, began building in the 1960s, and completed his iconic Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall in 1997 and 2003 respectively, his first building in New York appeared only in 2007 — the IAC Building on the Hudson River waterfront.
The ten-story IAC Building was constructed for the media empire of Barry Diller, who owns an entire portfolio of internet projects (the IAC holding), and serves as chairman of the board and a major shareholder of Expedia. Incidentally, he is also the one who financed and donated the Little Island park to the city.
Architectural details
The main feature of Gehry’s building, aside from the signature absence of right angles, is its milky facade, which changes tone depending on the weather. On a cloudy morning it looks like a massive iceberg on the Hudson’s edge; in the evening, like a screen that diffuses the sunset.
This effect is achieved through the use of double-curved glass, which was the first instance of such technology in U.S. commercial architecture. The glass has a special ceramic coating applied using a screen-printing technique, creating a “frosted” effect and reducing glare.
We included in this post a photograph showing how the coating creates a gradient of transparency. The density of the pattern changes depending on the geometry of the panels, so the entire facade was handmade in Germany at the Josef Gartner GmbH factory.
The facade is assembled from more than a thousand such glass panels, most of which are unique in shape with no repeating standard sizes. The installation itself was carried out using GPS calibration and laser stations, ensuring that each panel occupied its precise position in space.
Interesting facts
Critics nicknamed the IAC Building «the iceberg on 11th Avenue», and many tourists try to get inside, assuming it’s some kind of art center or museum.
There’s also a joke that this building is «Gehry’s quietest one». It’s not about acoustics, but about the behavior of the facade: it doesn’t glare, doesn’t mirror its surroundings like skyscrapers do, and doesn’t compete with the skyline. This «quietness» became one of the most discussed aspects in professional architectural press in the mid-2000s.
📍 Address: IAC Building / 555 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011
🏛️ Architect: Frank Gehry, completed in 2007
