Defiantly Local

Walt Disney Concert Hall
111 South Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA
www.laphil.com  

It may seem odd to put anything on this page with the name Disney on it, but let’s be clear before going any further: The Walt Disney Concert Hall has no affiliation with the Walt Disney Corporation.  It is part of the Los Angeles Music Center, serves as home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and just so happens to bear the name Disney in honor of its biggest contributor.  Lilian Disney believed that Los Angeles needed a symphony concert hall and donated the initial $50 million gift in honor of her late husband.  Beyond the fact that mouse dollars provided seed money, this is not a Disney property. 

Los Angeles is an amalgamation of glamorous and seedy, sometimes all in one package.  It’s a city that struggles with its own complex identity, partially as a large number of its residents are not native Californians and have no connection to the places of its colorful past, partially because it’s so very sprawling that it’s difficult to find a cohesive character.  The city and its neighbor, Hollywood, carry the very aura that their residents are accused of being – shallow, self-centered, and in many cases illusions.  Yet, the exceptions to the rule are overwhelmingly exceptional.  In architecture, those places are the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Los Angeles is enamored with its heyday, the 1950s.  Roadside stands, early signs from fast food franchises, classic cars, and diners featuring waitresses in old-school uniforms stand out drastically against a landscape of usually trend-setting culture.  The city retains elements of its glory decade, then conveniently skips to the present.  Los Angeles seemingly never fell in love with the minimalist and brutalist culture that followed the 1950s in American architecture, instead choosing to leap forward to modernism and post modernism.   And now there’s Frank Gehry.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall could not be placed in any other downtown in the world except Los Angeles.  No other city would tolerate this building in the midst of its daily business.  Live arts venues have been seeking unique forms since the Sydney Opera House appeared on the scene, and Moshe Safdie and Frank Gehry have been more than happy to design these conversation-inspiring structures in recent years. Where Safdie remains conscious of his surroundings and donor dollars, incorporating the landscape into his structures, Gehry creates experiences.

This is the man who designed the Bilbao Museum and the Experience Music Project.  I’ll save my opinions of him as an architect until 30 years have passed and we see how his structures weather the test of time.   However, Los Angeles is the one and only place in the country that would place this city-block-sized, stainless steel shipwreck on a prominent downtown corner.

Many were not happy with the building.  Overbudget, out of place…the eagle has landed in downtown Los Angeles.  But, then, the French hated the Eiffel Tower at first.  It’s so enormous and so overwhelming that the neighbors sued.  The stainless steel reflects the California sunshine so intensely during the afternoons that their apartments were heating up more than fifteen degrees with the heat coming through the windows.  Say what you will, though, this is a place of real enchantment.

Gehry’s vision for the design was that of a garden to honor Mrs. Disney’s love of horticulture.  When stepping in the front doors, the four-story, straight grain, Douglas fir pillars are shaped like tree trunks, which happen to conveniently provide HVAC and light.  The wood was selected for its grain and its common use in musical instruments.  This is, after all, a concert hall.  The carpets have abstract leaves throughout, and varying shapes are reminiscent of flowers, sticks, and natural atmospheres.  The white ceramic and marble give the feel of natural stone pathways.

A rooftop garden is open to the public every day.  It features an enormous fountain made of mosaic Delft china in the shape of a rose, to honor Mrs. Disney.  The trees in the rooftop garden are all mature trees that were removed from varying places and relocated to this roof.  They were replanted to face the direction they originally grew.  There are flowers, tables to relax, and a magnificent view of the city, all from the shadow of the stainless steel waves and broken sails above.

The roof also houses a small amphitheater for youth concerts and arts education.  The main concert hall inside is an unusual shape and features an organ with pipes that look like French Fries falling out of fast food cardboard sleeve.  The stunning acoustics were designed by Mr. Toyota.  A third multipurpose concert hall at street level can be converted for any use – speakers, piano recitals, whatever.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall is bar none the most kinetic building one can imagine.  The stainless steel curves alter light and shadow through every waking hour.  The glass on street level reveals changing light with every green of the traffic signal.  The curves feel as though they are both crashing in and protecting visitors all at once.  Though not tall enough to alter the skyline, this is a building that will define Los Angeles architecturally the way the sadly lost Ambassador Hotel once did.

Taking a flying leap into the future with a sometimes unpopular project, Los Angeles has emerged with a world-class symphony hall with character all its own.  A welcoming art space that embraces the public every day, the WDCH has effectively altered the imposing and austere image of classical music to one of whimsy and enchantment.  Only in Los Angeles could that, the dream of every arts educator, come true.