Frank Gehry is enjoying a major moment: his retrospective is in full swing in Paris and his latest creation opens today. Is he at the height of his talent or just a little bit crazy?

The Pompidou exhibition starts chronologically, with Gehry’s first completed project (Steeves House, 1959) and the foundation of his architecture firm (1962). His trajectory thereafter is too vast to neatly summarize, but some indelible projects include: the crisscrossed Vila Olímpica fish sculpture on the Barcelona waterfront (1992), symbolic of his Jewish heritage and the carp his grandparents would eat; the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health (2010) that looks like it’s melting under the Las Vegas sun; the wrinkled surface of the 76-story Beekman Tower in New York (2011); and the Biomuseo in Panama (2014), a brash playpen of vivid colors. (Note: The Daily Beast is headquartered in the Frank Gehry designed IAC building in New York City).

Another theme underlined in the exhibition is Gehry’s role as an urbanist.HisGuggenheim Bilboa (1997) is singular not just for its jaw-dropping silhouette and scale, but also for its location on the port, which Gehry insisted on despite the neighborhood’s questionable reputation. This addition ultimately “reactivated” that sector of the city. “Placed elsewhere, it may not have been so successful. It is because it perfectly implanted, grafted to the city, that it works,” Migayrou says. “He completely disrupts not only the conception of architecture—but also the fabrication, the mise en oeuvre of architecture.”

Having often been accused of creating buildings that are overworked and over-the-top, Gehry has a very strong response—he gave the finger to one such critique at a Spanish press conference this week. “Let me tell you guys, in the world that we live in, 98 percent of the buildings built are pure shit. They have no sense of design, or respect for humanity, for judgment, for nothing," he said in defense of his work.

His newest achievement, the unparalleled, galactic-looking behemoth of theFondation Louis Vuitton, has nothing neutral about it either. Funnily enough, it’s a significant barometer of just how far Gehry’s career has come. In his very early days, he did a stint as an architect in Paris, struggling while living in a suburban basement apartment relatively nearby.