Brad Pitt: The Architectural Intern

To all those taking their architectural internship, it looks like you are now in good company with Brad Pitt.

After trying to tear down the walls of Troy, Brad Pitt wants to turn himself into a master builder. The star is planning a break from filming blockbusters to learn the secrets of modern design at the Los Angeles studio of Frank Gehry, one of the world's leading architects.

Pitt will serve an informal apprenticeship with Gehry, the Canadian architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and is preparing an £800 million plan to redevelop a strip of downtown Los Angeles.

Earlier this month Pitt, 40, appeared at a Los Angeles architectural forum with Gehry as a member of his downtown "Dream Team", a consortium drawing up ambitious plans to counter urban blight in the city.

Gehry, 73, introduced Pitt as a friend, but the relationship will acquire an extra dimension if, as expected, the Dream Team wins the right to redevelop Grand Avenue. Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, which opened six months ago, is credited with bringing visitors back into the forbidding downtown area.

Pitt, who is advising Gehry on cinema, sports hall and restaurant designs for the master plan, has told his film-booking representatives, Creative Artists Agency, that he wants to spend at least a year learning computer-aided architectural design, which has transformed building over the past 20 years.

Friends say his dedication will surprise those who dismiss Pitt as just a pretty face. "Brad is very serious about architecture and now he has the confidence to set his own priorities," said one.