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Los Angeles, California
Sightseers see what they want, she's selling star maps to the sun
The brand new star on Grand Street in downtown Los Angeles, the Walt Disney Concert Hall is more fun than the Los Angeles Philharmonic deserves. Named after Walt and not the greedy, soulless company that he started, the Concert Hall is Frank Gehry's hometown masterpiece, ok maybe not "hometown"- Frank's lives and works in nearby Santa Monica, forgetting of course that he's really from Toronto.
This is actually the back door of the hall, the main entrance is on the front right. In the center of all of the swirling metal panels there is a shop with lots of CDs and Gehry books, just to its right is the box office. On the left is a staircase up to an upper level, part of a terribly fun path that circles around the outside of the building, up and across stairs and bridges, alternating between hiding behind the metal panels or just basking in their glow.
The front door to the thoroughly unspectacular lobby, a rare disappointment in such a spectacular building.
On a late afternoon, the light catches at least some of the metal panels on a building that is hard to stop taking pictures of. This is part of that supposed garden path that circles the building around the outside, rising and falling behind those sheltering curves.
I actually saw a 2 PM performance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, part of a Berlioz Festival. The auditorium itself is bathed with indirect light in both the front and rear of the hall, with curved wood everywhere. Unfortunately, Berlioz did not write any parts for an organ, so I did not hear its twisted pipes, unless of course it was played during the part I fell asleep.
Eleven years ago this month, I remember seeing the design for the Disney Concert Hall for the first time on the cover of the annual Progressive Architecture P/A Awards issue. A lot has changed since January 1993 (Progressive Architecture itself has been out of business for years), although the design has not changed that much. At its release it was unlike anything I had ever seen, the design pre dates Bilbao and is much nicer than Bilbao ever hoped to be. Construction, cost and politics pushed back construction longer than anyone could have imagined, and by November 2001 most of the steel was already up although it was still a year away from completion. The Walt Disney Concert Hall finally opened in 2003, creating a legitimate reason to go downtown, take some pictures, and spend $90 to fall asleep at a Berlioz Festival.
On that late Saturday afternoon in January, the Disney Hall was just about the only reason to be downtown. MoCA was closing across the street, and Grand Street itself was closed to accommodate the barbeque catering service for an adjacent film set. A few blocks away at the Cathedral, several wedding parties milled privately about the plaza, but uninvited guests seemed rare. The sun was going down fast as SUVs of every make and color drove through the city without stopping, but the hall (with no events that day) was still busy with gawkers taking pictures of every different angle, an island of life in an otherwise dead city.
Jose Rafael Moneo (or Rafael Moneo as he is usually referred to) completed his own Grand Avenue landmark just about the same time that the Disney Concert Hall opened up one (or two) blocks south. The cathedral suffers in comparison to its flashy neighbor, there are no large metal panels, no swooping curves, no circuitous path atop its crown, no SUVs stopping in the middle of the street to snap a picture or two. What it does have is some spectacular spaces that do not photograph well- it is a building that almost makes being catholic seem like a good idea.
Inside on a Sunday afternoon, about twenty minutes from a regularly scheduled all Spanish mass. There are no stained glass windows, but instead large translucent alabaster panels, carefully located in a wonderfully carved space.
On the Hollywood Freeway side of the cathedral (it is Los Angeles), a bell tower rises from a meditation garden, a small oasis within sight of eight lanes of traffic going at least 80 miles per hour. In order to protect both the serenity of the gardens and legitimate safety concerns of the parishioners, a wall of framed glass panels separate the gardens and plaza (complete with fountains, a shop and outdoor cafe) with the adjacent, recessed 101 Freeway.
From the southbound Hollywood Freeway, from the edges of its seating area, from under the glow of the alabaster windows, Jose Rafael Moneo's (relatively) unheralded cathedral tries like hell to be noticed in that brave new Frank Gehry downtown.
Even though it is in downtown, the cathedral does not address a pedestrian city but feels more like an isolated fortress in it. The plaza is walled and gated off, meaning that its garden, catholic book shops and catholic sidewalk cafes rarely feel like amenities for all. There is a large parking garage in the complex- most of the parishioners seem to arrive by car, especially since there is nothing but weekday office buildings around it. That said, it feels only right that its bell tower becomes such a presence on the 101, an attempted distraction from all that speeding and good radio
