Frank Gehry for Tiffany & Co Agate Torque Bangle Bracelet, Rare and Retired

With magnificent buildings such as the Guggenheim Bilbao, Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the new Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris, Frank Gehry has changed the nature and spirit of contemporary architecture. Yet the world’s best-known living architect has also enjoyed a prolific career as a designer of artful and functional objects, ranging from furniture to jewelry, that even at smaller scale are as lively and captivating as his architectural designs.

Gehry was born in Toronto and moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1947. He received a degree in architecture from the University of Southern California in 1954 and — after several years of casting about that included a stint in the U.S. Army and studies at Harvard — Gehry opened his architectural practice in L.A. in 1962.

Idiosyncratic renovations to his small, traditional house in Santa Monica — such as cladding portions of the exterior in chain-link fencing and corrugated metal — drew attention to Gehry in architectural circles. Corporate and institutional commissions added to his reputation, culminating in the global acclaim that greeted the opening of the Guggenheim Bilbao in 1997. But the combination of visual dynamism and structural integrity expressed by that building had been evident for decades in Gehry’s designs. In 1972 he introduced a much-admired line of furniture he called Easy Edges. The curves and flowing lines of the pieces, which include the Wiggle chair, seem antithetical to the material are made from: cardboard — a presumably flimsy material that, when stacked, laminated and folded, is actually extraordinarily sturdy.

Many of Gehry’s designs feature an abstracted fish motif. For the architect, it is a symbol of vitality, strength and flexibility. The fish appears in a group of 1982 plastic lamps created for Formica (and exhibited by the Jewish Museum in New York in 2010). Gehry used the motif in crystal goblets for Swid Powell (1990), his Pito kettle for Alessi (1992) and as earrings for a 2006 jewelry collection for Tiffany that also includes torqued rings, necklaces and bangles.

Gehry returned to furniture design in 1992 with a remarkably energetic line of furniture for Knoll with frames and seating made of bent, lightweight wooden strops. (The pieces' names, such as Power Play and Cross Check, derive from ice hockey.) In 2004, Heller released a group of twisted, faceted furnishings in molded polyethylene meant to evoke Gehry’s architecture. But — whether its tableware, jewelry or furniture — all Gehry’s designs do that--sharing an animated aesthetic built on a solid foundational core. To possess a piece of Gehry design is to own one of his buildings, in miniature.

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Tiffany & Co. is one of the most prominent purveyors of luxury goods in the United States, and has long been an important arbiter of style in the design of diamond engagement rings. A young Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed to his future wife, Eleanor, with a Tiffany ring in 1904. Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Astors and members of the Russian imperial family all wore Tiffany & Co. jewelry. And Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis preferred Tiffany china for state dinners at the White House.

Although synonymous with luxury today, the firm started out rather modestly. Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young founded it in Connecticut as a “stationery and fancy goods emporium” in 1837, at a time when European imports still dominated the nascent American luxury market. In 1853, Charles Tiffany — who in 1845 had launched the company’s famed catalog, the Blue Book, and with it, the firm’s signature robin’s-egg blue, which he chose for the cover — shifted the focus to fine jewelry.

In 1868, Tiffany & Co. gained international recognition when it became the first U.S. firm to win an award for excellence in silverware at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. From then on, it belonged to the pantheon of American luxury brands.

At the start of the Gilded Age, in 1870, Tiffany & Co. opened its flagship store, described as a "palace of jewels" by the New York Times, at 15 Union Square West in Manhattan. Throughout this period, its designs for silver tableware, ceremonial silver, flatware and jewelry were highly sought-after indicators of status and taste. They also won the firm numerous accolades, including the grand prize for silverware at the Paris Exposition of 1878. Among the firm’s glittering creations from this time are masterworks of Art Nouveau jewelry, such as this delicate aquamarine necklace and this lavish plique-à-jour peridot and gold necklace, both circa 1900.

When Charles Lewis Tiffany died, in 1902, his son Louis Comfort Tiffany became the firm’s design director. Under his leadership, the Tiffany silver studio was a de facto design school for apprentice silversmiths, who worked alongside head artisan Edward C. Moore. The firm produced distinctive objects inspired by Japanese art and design, North American plants and flowers, and Native American patterns and crafts, adding aesthetic diversity to Tiffany & Co.’s distinguished repertoire.

Tiffany is also closely associated with diamonds, even lending its name to one particularly rare and exceptional yellow stone. The firm bought the Tiffany diamond in its raw state from the Kimberley mines of South Africa in 1878. Cut to create a 128.54-carat gem with an unprecedented 82 facets, it is one of the most spectacular examples of a yellow diamond in the world.

In a broader sense, Tiffany & Co. helped put diamonds on the map in 1886 by introducing the American marketplace to the solitaire diamond design, which is still among the most popular engagement-ring styles. The trademark Tiffany® Setting raises the stone above the band on six prongs, allowing its facets to catch the light. A lovely recent example is this circa-2000 platinum engagement ring. Displaying a different design and aesthetic (but equally chic) is this exquisite diamond and ruby ring from the 1930s.

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