Frank Gehry's initial training took place at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Harvard University, followed by a decisive stay in Paris in 1960-1961. Through contact with modern architects in Southern California, such as Rudolf Schindler, the young man discovered light, inventive building methods. Working as a draughtsman in the office of Victor Gruen, the inventor of the American shopping mall, he became familiar with urban issues, with which he was immediately passionate, and met architects and engineers with whom he was to maintain contact for decades. He acquired a good knowledge of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and, above all, of Japanese architecture, to which he constantly referred in his first, often very modest, buildings.
With the Steeves house and the Hillcrest apartment building, he and his partner Gregory Walsh embarked on an operation to subvert the dominant building types in Los Angeles.
