A creative child, he liked music and painting. In particular, he says that the "small town" on the kitchen floor, made from his maternal grandmother and wood-burning stove fuel wood chips, is the origin of his creation. Also, the use of industrial materials such as corrugated iron plates , wire mesh, and plywood is influenced by the experience of my grandfather's hardware store, which I helped as a teenager after school and on Saturdays. After graduating from high school in Toronto, he moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1947. While helping a truck driver and relatives' business, he attended a night class at Los Angeles City College to study art and architecture. He also attended an overtime program at the University of Southern California to study art history and ceramics . In 1952, he married his first wife, Anita. 1954 to the University of Southern California than architecturally to get the Bachelor. In the same year, at the birth of his first child, he changed his surname from Jewish Goldberg to what is now Gary to avoid the effects of anti-Semitism. He studied city planning for a year at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. After that, he returned to Los Angeles, worked at the Pereira & Luckman office, and then belonged to the Victor Gruen office where he worked in college. He belonged to the Gruen office until 1960, and worked on a wide range of designs from residential to commercial facilities, offices, and complex facilities.

In 1961, at the invitation of a friend, he moved to Paris with his wife and two young daughters, using the design fee for Steves 's house. In Paris, architect of Andre Rumonde work under the (Andre Remondet), 1967 years to establish the other young architects and office.