The Last Frank Gehry Post
We realize that we've gone on long enough about Frank Gehry. However, it was difficult to pass up on the opportunity to post so many pictures of beautiful buildings, crazy buildings that make you look twice and think about possibilities. Buildings that are, quite frankly (no pun intended) not Santa Monica Place. So in our last installment on Frank Gehry, we decided we'd discuss the anti-Santa Monica Place -- The Disney Concert Hall.
Downtown LA is an easy place to get lost in. It's a forest of tall, glassy Bauhaus structures, like a series of cemetary stones sprung up in the flat plane between Century City and the horizon. On closer inspection, it's one of the city's richest repositories of art deco architecture and home of many of the oldest and most beautiful theaters (no matter how run down and threadbare they are.) But these attract only the discerning eye. They're easily overlooked.
On the outskirts of the tall buildings, not quite visible from the 110 freeway, you can stumble across the Disney Concert Hall. It's splayed gorgeously over an entire city block, a concrete representation of the art within, the kind of dazzling structure that can change the way you see everything. The Disney Concert Hall is the result of about fifteen years of work. Lillian Disney (widow of Walt Disney) donated the initial contribution of $50 million dollars in 1987. Gehry turned in the finished design in 1991. Contruction on the underground garage began 1992 and was approximated to cost between $90 million and $110 million dollars. The project stalled after that, due to lack of funds, but groundbreaking did take place in 1999, and the Hall opened to the public in 2003.
The Concert Hall is unquestionably one of the most striking and beautiful buildings in Los Angeles. It is home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Los Angeles Master Coral as well as REDCAT, the Los Angeles Opera, and, in what is arguably the most important restaurant space in Los Angeles (and priced to match), Patina. On the outside, the building is rippling and lyrical, so bright that portions of its surface had to be sandblasted last year to mitigate the intense heat and light emmitted by its metal skin. Inside, the material is reddish wood amphitheaters swirl up in surprising ways. Behind is hidden a a jewel like garden, with a fountain shaped like a rose and yet another small amphitheater. It is a jewel in a city of exceptional buildings.
posted by kuaptic. @ 4:02 PM
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