Maybe I should go farther and say it is one of the best introductions to architecture that we have. Outside In'' gets to the heart of its subject without any of the obfuscations of books written for adults. It brings you into Gehry's life and into his work, and it addresses the way each of these things has affected the other. The authors, who also wrote a remarkable book about the artist Chuck Close, do use Gehry's life for a kind of basic narrative structure. We are told, often in his own words, about his childhood in Canada, about his family's financial woes, about his life as a truck driver as his family attempted an economic recovery in Los Angeles, and then about his growing awakening to architecture in general and to the artistic culture of Southern California in particular. ''As he searched for his own style, he realized he had more in common with the methods of cutting-edge West Coast artists than with the standard fare of other architects,'' the authors say.
Life is chaotic, dangerous and surprising.
But I know that this remark can provoke a fascinating conversation among all but the youngest children about why certain buildings appeal to them and others do not, and how accurately it takes us into Gehry's way of thinking. Greenberg and Jordan understand that Gehry is not some kind of crazy sculptor, but very much an architect who is concerned with fulfilling the needs of his clients, and they devote a fair amount of space to explaining exactly how he does this and comes up with buildings that look so different from everybody else's. Their book includes several of Gehry's best projects from the days before he became an international superstar, like the law school of Loyola University in downtown Los Angeles, a village of simple shapes arranged around a small public square, which they juxtapose with a photograph of the Roman Forum, making the connection absolutely clear. Gehry loved the way the Forum was a collection of pieces, many in ruins, and the way it tied his project, symbolically at least, to the origins of the law. I'll move a wall on a model, look at it for two weeks, then move it again.