Walt Disney is no stranger to us. Generations have grown with his cartoons; his stories are still told and his animations still feature in movie theaters around the world. Yet he is much more than a cartoonist. His media empire, fueled by his imagination and supported by his brother Roy, has done more than what many others could ever dream. He built a conglomerate that produces and distributes movies - not only cartoons, mind you - as well as operating a multitude of theme parks around the world, selling Disney branded merchandise, operating TV networks (including ABC and ESPN) and even producing Marvel comicbooks. At his death in 1966, he left a legacy that few other people can come close to in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, to where he had moved from the midwestern United States. The empire the Disney brothers founded in 1923 in Hollywood eventually has grown to a giant with revenues of more than 45 billion dollars in 2013.
What better tribute, then, could be than to erect an eternal monument to the city he helped make? That is what Lillian Disney, Walt's wife from 1925 until his passing, had in mind when she donated 50 million dollars to the city of Los Angeles in 1987; she wanted the city to build a performing arts center to conmemorate her late husband. The center would serve as a reminder of Disney's dedication to both art and to Los Angeles. This donation was, essentially, the spark that led to the commissioning of one of the most remarkable buildings ever built in California. It was what made the Walt Disney Concert Hall possible.
It took the city of Los Angeles nearly 16 years to realize Lillian's dream, however. The Walt Disney Concert Hall opened its doors in 2003, four years after Lillian herself passed away - she did not live to see her husband's iconic tribute in real life. Built in downtown LA, on a strech of Grand Avenue between 1st and 2nd streets, the hall was officially opened on October 24, 2003 as the new home of the LA Philarmonic Orchestra and the LA Master Chorale and part of the larger Los Angeles Music Center.
Immediately after its opening, it became a source of intrigue for Los Angelinos that were not used to seeing such works of prominent architects within their city. The hall is by no means the first work of Frank Gehry of - the famous American architect - in California of course; him having designed many others including his own residence back in 1971. In fact, the majority of his works, especially those dating to his earlier years were in this state. However, it was only after the 1990s that he gained widespread recognition, during which period most of his commissionings were outside the United States.
Specifically, his Bilbao Guggenheim Museum project that opened in 1997, the topic of a future post on this blog, was a turning point in his career and led him to popularity in the architectural world; it was this structure that reshaped a sleeping Basque capital into an art mecca. However, Gehry had already started working on the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 1987 right after the donation from Disney's widow to LA, and his designs for the hall had already been completed and delivered to the city of Los Angeles back in 1991. Indeed, during the time he was working on the concert hall project, he was recognized for his architectural work and awarded the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1989.
What made him more prominent and famous - a starchitect according to some - was his rather increasing use of polished metal surfaces, combined with deconstructivist aspects in his works. His projects after the 1990s have increasingly followed this pattern, starting with the Olympic Fish in Barcelona's famous olympic village overlooking the Mediterranean.Weisman Museum of Art in Minneapolis, the Dancing House (more commonly known as the Fred and Ginger Building) in Prague and of course the Guggenheim all were steps in this direction. But his Walt Disney Concert Hall project, which in fact predates most of these buildings but was delayed due to funding and building issues, is arguably his ultimate work in this scheme. His work has been such praised lately that he was labeled the most important architect of our age by the Vanity Fair and awarded the design works of the future memorial for Eisenhower.
Constructed as part of the LA Music Center, itself a complex of several buildings including the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (that the hall replaced as the main venue), Ahmanson Theater and Mark Taper Forum, the Walt Disney Concert Hall hosts the philarmonic orchestra and the chorale of the city. The opera and the dance company occupy the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion next door, while the other two buildings host theater companies. As such, the hall's main purpose is to cater for orchestral musical performances, allowing the architecture to focus on delivering a superior acoustical performance.
The ground works for the hall began in 1992, with the first stage comprising of the underground parking garage completed in 1996 at a whopping cost of 110 million dollars. With the entire project far exceeding its anticipated budget, the construction stalled after this for a while, and it was not until 1999 that new funds were secured and construction of the hall itself began in earnest. In fact, it was during this stage that the external cladding was changed from stone to sheet metal to reduce costs - a decision that led to the hallmark look of the current structure. Lillian Disney herself died only days after the groundbreaking for the hall, on the very same day her beloved husband had passed away 33 years before.
The entire project, completed in 2003, cost more than 274 million dollars, mostly funded by private donors. In addition to the initial 50 million given by Lillian, a further 35 million dollars were handed by the Disney family, as well as another 25 million dollars from the Walt Disney Company itself.
Upon completion, the hall was lauded for both its architectural accomplishment and its acoustic design - designed by Yasuhisa Toyota. The concert hall's interior walls are covered with Douglas fir, while the hall features a large concert organ whose facade was also designed by Gehry himself. This organ was added to the hall in 2004 to be used in a special concert for the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists.
The interior of the hall sets the bar as high as possible as concert halls go. But it is the exterior of the building that inspires awe more often than not. Built in the deconstructivist style that Gehry is a well-known ambassador, the building gives different views from every angle. This architectural style is an offshoot of postmodern architecture characterized by fragmentation, manipulation of surfaces, introduction of unexpected angles and curves to break the dominance of rectilinear shapes in buildings. The end result is often a building that can represent controlled chaos in architecture.
Obviously, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is one such building, with almost no straight edges except those mandatory to fit physical constraints, both concave and convex surfaces, entry / exit points at the least expected locations and a sense of loss of direction when looked at from afar. By combining all these, the hall exemplifies how non-conventional shapes can still be part of everyday architecture without loss of functionality.
Still, the hall has not been without its issues. The concave sections of polished metal, combined with the high temperatures of Southern California, has resulted in sunlight being focused on streets and buildings nearby and temperatures of up to 60 degrees Celsius being recorded in these spots. In addition, glare caused by the reflective metal has resulted in increased danger of traffic accidents. To solve these issues, certain sections of the reflective metal coating were sanded over by Gehry's firm in 2005.
Downtown Los Angeles has been decaying for a long time. As the old center of one of the world's most renowned metropolises, it needed a hand to lift it up. The hand came in the form of a concert hall, that would not only serve as a means of revitalizing a once forgotten part of the city, but also as a tribute to a great man that reshaped entertainment into what we know now. Thanks to the Walt Disney Concert Hall by Gehry, a giant name and a great city will both have a new lease on life.
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