Walt Disney Concert Hall: Keep Your Distance

I approach from the corner of 1st Street and Grand Avenue, where the Walt Disney Concert Hall greets its visitors with its main entrance. After crossing the wide stretch of concrete keeping the downtown traffic at a comfortable distance, I behold a massive entanglement of steel and glass, of angles and curves, of industrial ferocity and organic tenderness. Huge walls rise up out of the concrete at different angles and bend and curl around each other, pumping with a fearsome vitality. At this corner, the forms open up dramatically, like the mouth of a Leviathan, to reveal a simple concrete entry way, offering a glimpse of the mysterious structure’s innards.
Each of the immense walls is plated with large, rectangular steel panels, laid on top of each other in a strictly regimented stair-step pattern, notably contrasting the apparent disorder under which the rest of the structure operates. The steel is brushed, I assume to reduce reflectivity (as well as complaints of blindness from the residents of neighboring buildings), which gives the structure’s rather bold presence a classy subtlety, and also establishes a link to the cold industrial might that inevitably pays for extravagant architectural projects in major metropolises like Los Angeles.
From across the street, I marveled at my total inability to spatially grasp what was unfolding before me—and closer inspection further suspended my comprehension by introducing a multitude of new forms and dimensions, all of which continued to morph with the slightest perceptual adjustment. My disorientation is largely due to the scale of the curving, windowless walls—windows being a standard tool for measuring the otherwise overwhelming size of typical downtown skyscrapers. But the entire structure resides at the very threshold of chaos. It thrives on treading the line between acute mathematical precision and total architectural anarchy. I am enthralled by how well behaved Gehry’s pet monster has agreed to be in such a lawless environment.
However, when I walk up next to the structure, the wonderment starts to fall apart. I start noticing how much inhabitable space is wasted by all the extreme angles. I look up at the expanses of curving and realize they must be empty. I look down behind a colossal steel arm and see where a hose and a golf cart are being stored. These observations disrupted my ability to perceive the Disney Concert Hall as true architecture; the difference between architecture and sculpture being that architecture has the directive to house human activities. It is here that Gehry’s design starts to slip; his building is no doubt impressive, but that impressiveness depends upon the fact that it is a building, and not a sculpture in a public courtyard. It is of course impressive, and extraordinary, and beautiful to look at all the same, but I cannot deny a sense of disappointment when I discover that he didn’t bother making his radical forms work as a space for people, but just stuck them on a street corner for people to navigate like ants in a crumpled can.
I was also disappointed by the surprising shoddiness of how the structure was put together. A distant perspective presents elegant, futuristic precision, but up close I notice that the steel panels are never quite flush. At every edge, there are crooked gaps of varying sizes. In certain places, where Gehry is attempting particularly difficult bends or twists, the panels are actually often lifting off of one another. In these spots the structure feels like just a temporary mock up of Gehry’s big idea that should have never left his studio. You can imagine him taping additional pieces of paper on to his cardboard model, to smooth out the complicated junctures. It reminded me of what it felt like in grade school to find myself pulling an all-nighter at the last minute, trying to make the damn thing actually work before the deadline.
For a moment, I wonder if perhaps I like to see how the artist struggled to put the forms together. It seems to work nicely with the organic quality of the structure. I think that maybe being able to notice this delicate vulnerability lends a powerfully human condition to an otherwise unapproachable alien fortress. But then I continue my walk around the block, back to the main entrance where I come across the sales display for a new, ultra-chic Acura SUV, which sits haughtily before the glass doors. I then realize that this building was probably never intended to reflect the foibles of man. It more likely is just another symbol of commercial success. In this light the building seems to audaciously suggest that it is simply too important to yield to the needs of its inhabitants. Which of course, is not the problem. Many of the manmade wonders of the world have little regard for utility. However, if Gehry really wants this thing to sing the names of wealth and power, he shouldn’t have made it look like it was constructed with a glue stick.