How Frank Gehry’s design and Lillian Disney’s dream were rescued to create the masterful Walt Disney Concert Hall
Architectural Record, November 2003
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1999-2003: Construction resumes
Fears over additional delays due to the design’s complexity proved unwarranted. Partly this was because contractors and subcontractors had largely caught up with Gehry Partner’s expertise in CATIA in the intervening years. Builders relied on 3D steel detailing systems and construction-coordination models and animations. The post-Northridge seismic criteria resulted in a structural design that relied on a dense network of steel members, complicating work for mechanical trades that had to thread ductwork and other utilities through. New seismic requirments led to reinforcement of the garage.
There was one final delay. “We held off opening for six months to get the orchestra into the hall,” said Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic Association’s general director. Wary that negative assessments by critics and musicians could damage a hall’s reputation for years, officials left nothing about the inauguration to chance. “Openings are precarious events,” added Gehry. (Everyone’s anxiety increased when the ambitious Kimmell Center opened in Philadelphia before its elaborate adjustable acoustic elements had been fully tuned—to some strongly negative reviews.)
In June, the orchestra moved into the hall for a tuning period. Although the players were told that the process involved both the room and the orchestra, the design has no adjustable elements, and no physical changes have been made. “The process is actually psychological,” Salonen told Record. “We’re learning to play in the hall rather than change things.” At the first rehearsal, reported Cathleen McGuigan in Newsweek, Salonen turned to Gehry, sitting in the audience, and said, “We’ll keep it.” Gehry began to cry.
October 2003: After the ovations
Evidence of the tears and the years of anguished midnight telephone calls had vanished from Gehry’s appearance at a September interview. Speed-walking through the entrance lobby, he described the wood tree forms rising through three atrium levels, as well as the carpet, decorated in patterns of Frank Stella-like petals, as among the ways he honored Lillian Disney’s love of gardens. In the uppermost lobbies, he pointed out one of a dizzying number of bravura moments: how the canted walls explode upward into a raked grid of skylights over which soars the curving metal carapace of the external shells.
Inside the hall, the 74-year-old architect scrambled energetically up steeply raked rows of seats to his favorite vantages. One is behind the orchestra next to the exquisitely crafted criss-crossed wooden spaghetti of organ pipes. Another is just below the monumental rear window that opens to a sliver of prismlike glass and metal outside. “It’s intimate, isn’t it?” he asks from this row most distant from the stage, still marveling that this dream he’s lived with so long has finally gotten built. He points out balconies hidden in corners behind the warping, wood-clad surfaces, where trumpets will fanfare or choral voices will rise unseen. Each of these spots is rich with sensuously detailed architectural incident. What does Disney mean to him now? “I’m on to the next thing,” he replies. “I need something new to be insecure about,”
The first public performance occurred after Record’s press deadline, but officials and observers exuded confidence in the acoustics as the opening neared. Still, a project that took so long, cost so much ($274 million in the end), and took such a toll (both financially and personally) on two generations of the city’s civic leadership cannot help but remain controversial. Disney is opening at a dismal moment for the arts economy, especially for orchestras; several have folded in the last year alone. Will cheap CDs and digital downloads deep-six live, unamplified performances? Can the Philharmonic’s ambitious and diverse programming draw audiences from among Los Angeles’ racial, ethnic, and economic melting pot? Will the hall inject life into a downtown notoriously resistant to redevelopment? These are the challenges that lie beyond the early ovations.
For Salonen, who arrived from Finland never expecting that he had signed on to such an epic undertaking, it’s time for reflection. “What this project has done for the orchestra is incredible. They now understand fully what a gift has been given to them. And now we’re working to show we’re worthy of it.” Would he take on such a project again? “It was such a profound experience that I don’t expect to have a similar one again.” Salonen is a very youthful looking 45, but he says wistfully, “I almost feel as if I’ve lived my life.”
A review (with images of Disney Hall) can be found on The Slatin Report.