Walt Disney Concert Hall

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Main entrance of Walt Disney Concert Hall

Profile view from Grand Avenue; the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is to the right in the rear

A view of the concert hall at night

The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves (among other purposes) as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

The Frank Gehry-designed building, an example of Deconstructivism, opened on October 23, 2003 and features his trademark steel cladding. While the architecture (as with other Gehry works) evoked mixed opinions, the acoustics of the concert hall were widely praised in contrast to its predecessor, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

1 Construction
2 Reflection problems
3 Concert organ
4 Pop culture
5 External links

[edit] Construction

The project was launched in 1987, when Lillian Disney, widow of Walt Disney, donated $50 million. Gehry delivered completed designs in 1991. Construction of the underground parking garage began in 1992 and was completed in 1996. The garage cost has been variously estimated between $90 million to $110 million, and was paid for by Los Angeles County, which sold bonds to provide the garage under the site of the planned hall.

However, construction of the concert hall itself stalled from 1994 to 1996 due to lack of fundraising. Additional funds were required since the construction cost of the the final project far exceeded the original budget. Plans were revised, and in a cost saving move the originally designed stone exterior was replaced with a less costly metal skin. The needed fundraising restarted in earnest in 1996 - after the real estate depression passed - headed up by Eli Broad and then-mayor Richard Riordan and groundbreaking for the hall was held in December 1999.

Upon completion in 2003, the project had cost an estimated $274 million, including the parking garage. The remainder of the total cost was paid by private donations, of which the Disney family's contribution was estimated to $84.5 million with another $25 million from The Walt Disney Company. By comparison, the three existing halls of the Music Center cost $35 million in the 1960s.

The concert hall is a popular subject for photographers.

[edit] Reflection problems

After the construction, additional expenses were incurred to correct a flaw resulting from the design's use of polished concave stainless steel surfaces. Residents of the neighboring condominiums suffered significant glare caused by sunlight that was reflected and concentrated in a manner similar to a parabolic mirror. The concentrated light made some rooms of nearby condominiums unbearably hot, caused the air-conditioning costs of these residents to skyrocket, and created hot spots on adjacent sidewalks of as much as 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Employees of the ticket office reported observing melted plastic traffic cones and spontaneous combustion in trash bins. After complaints from neighboring buildings and residents, the county government stepped in and asked Disney to come up with a solution. Their response was a computer analysis of the building's structure; after the offending surfaces were identified, they were sanded to reduce glare in 2005.

[edit] Concert organ

The design of the hall included a large concert organ, completed in 2004, which was used in a special concert for the July 2004 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists. The organ had its public debut in a non-subscription recital performed by Frederick Swann on September 30, 2004, and its first public performance with the Philharmonic two days later in a concert featuring Todd Wilson.

The organ's Gehry-designed facade sparked a great deal of controversy, as it includes a large number of pipes deliberately set at odd angles. Some people viewing early renderings and models compared it to a bag of French fries. The organ was built by the German organbuilder Caspar Glatter-Götz, under the tonal direction of Manuel Rosales. It has an attached console, built into the base of the instrument, from which approximately half the ranks are playable by direct mechanical, or "tracker" key action, with the rest playing by electro-pneumatic key action; this console somewhat resembles North-German Baroque organs, and has a closed-circuit television monitor set into the music desk. It is also equipped with a detached, movable console, which can be moved about as easily as a grand piano, and plugged in at any of four positions on the stage, this console has terraced, curved "ampitheatre"-style stop-jambs resembling those of French Romantic organs, and is built very low, with the music desk entirely above the top of the console, presumably for the sake of visibility. From the detached console, all ranks play by electro-pneumatic key action.

[edit] Pop culture

The Walt Disney Concert Hall was spoofed in The Simpsons 16th season episode The Seven-Beer Snitch; Frank Gehry voiced himself in the episode where the town of Springfield had him design a new Concert Hall for the town.[1] The Concert Hall was then transformed into a jail by Mr. Burns.