Disney Concert Hall Preview

A concert for eye as well as ear

Fun fabrics. Organ pipes as pickup sticks. And other playful notes in Disney Hall.

By Janet Eastman

Monday September 01, 2003

A BUILDING named after a 'toon tycoon can't be dull. It has to have surprises around every corner. A sense of humor. And a heavy coat of surrealism.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, as envisioned by architect Frank Gehry, has it right. Just try to find a wall that doesn't tilt, a walkway that doesn't wave, a rectangle that's level or two identical seats.

Inside, there's a $3-million organ with a tangle of wood pipes that look like a giant game of pickup sticks. Outside, perforated letters on the entrance sign are so subtle that they seem to disappear as they flow across swooping sheets of stainless steel. And in the sky-high garden, there are pink snowball trees with flowers that smell like sugar-cookie dough.

The downtown Los Angeles structure that splays 11,000 tons of steel frame across a city block, and that has endured decades of fits and starts, big-donor maneuverings, construction workers' whines and a price tag that ballooned to $274 million, is surprisingly ... fun. Inviting. A boat ride on the Pacific under billowing steel sails.

Ships and plants are the dual design themes here. That's because Gehry (a Pisces who played with carp when he was a kid) felt the audience should go on a voyage with the performers. And Lillian Disney, who launched the idea for a concert hall where everyone felt at home, loved flowers.

After the hall opens in October, no ticket will be needed to looky-loo the lobby and garden.

The big objects -- such as the wood-wrapped main auditorium that Gehry likened to Noah's Ark, the treelike support columns that hide air ducts and the sunlight-luring glass panels -- will no doubt overwhelm first-timers. But the smaller design details and winking finishing touches are worth more than a glance.

Here's what to look for:

Enter laughing: No ordinary ABCs would do here, so designer Bruce Mau whipped up a clean-lined, sans-serif typeface to mirror what he calls the "honesty, originality, humanity and wit" of the hall. Then he supercharged the playfulness, typesetting the name, blowing it up to 4 feet, flexing it, stretching it, punching pinholes in it and melding it onto the in-and-out swerve of the stainless steel entrance wall. Mau dubbed it "A Font Called Frank," in honor of the architect. It will also be seen in inlaid stainless steel on the felt-covered donor wall and on stationery, graphics and "wayfinding" signs that guide the crowds around the space.

Feeling full: No one wanted the hall to have that fun-sinking, hollow feeling when it was not overflowing with people. So special fabric, foam and other chair materials that absorb sound waves the same way as the human body were used. The music will sound the same whether seats are occupied or not.

Gehry also steered away from "the blank-face look" of solid carpet and upholstery fabrics and went with a leafy pattern collage that adds an informal air to a place where musicians will perform in tuxedos, not Hawaiian shirts.

Abstract leaves (or are they petals? Not even Disney's landscape designer, Melinda Taylor, knows for sure) point in all directions, and colors land without rhyme or reason. A seat cushion with a lot of purple is next to a predominantly green-covered seat, which is next to an orange one, or maybe a repeat of green or purple.

The 2,265 seats are mixed up in other ways too. Widths vary up to 2 inches because of the erratic shape of the auditorium. Treating the chairs like an accordion that's pushed in and pulled out could send panic through audience members who feel a tighter squeeze from one concert to the next. Let this be known: People, it's not you.

Legroom varies. Ticket holders in the high-priced seats directly in front of the stage have a few more inches to stretch out in than those in the back seats. This really shouldn't shock anyone, but project designer Craig Webb of Gehry Partners explains that some of the big donors are tall -- at 6-foot-4, one's almost a doorway ducker -- and specifically asked for more space. They got it.

Even the backs of the seats are different. Seats in the front have reclining backs to better view the stage, while those in the upper balconies are more vertical so the audience can sit up straight, lean a little forward and look down at the stage without crimping their necks.

Center of attention: To give the audience an up-close relationship with the performers, terraced seating wraps around the stage. Yes, around. Behind the stage are long, padded benches. Two staircases link the rows of benches to the stage to allow a choir to move from one to the other. But when there's no need for a chorus, the seats will be sold. What's to stop overzealous music lovers from running down the stairs to hug a cello? Philharmonic conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen can rest assured because, um, there will be a velvet rope in place to hold them back.

Unpainted vision: Peek into Salonen's high-ceilinged suite and see simple wall units made of the same durable Douglas fir used in the auditorium, only a less expensive plywood cut. Gehry decreed that the wood not be painted.

Can't hide all 6,125 pipes: Organ builder Manuel Rosales, who found his musical calling after seeing Disney's "Fantasia," teamed with Gehry to create a 50-foot-tall organ that breaks boundaries. A forest of wooden pipes, usually housed inside the instrument, are artistically arranged on the outside against a backdrop of a dozen shiny tin pipes and a sunburst of trumpets.

Much of the design beauty is so subtle that it will only be seen by the organist. The stops, which control the air in the pipes and make the sound, have delicate engraved labels announcing their names. Some have been christened with traditional names, such as "Diapason," Greek for "fullness." But Rosales played with others: There's a fiery-sounding one named after a spicy chili tostada, because "not all of it has to be serious as if some dead old European is watching," Rosales says.

But there's also a nod to something dear to Rosales' heart. The builder, who still lives in the Silver Lake neighborhood where he grew up, has named one of the stops "Trompetas de Los Angeles" ("Trumpets of Los Angeles").

Rosales will spend the next year tuning the organ to give it its voice before it makes its official debut next season. Then he will name it, unofficially. "I'm waiting for her personality to show through," he says. "She could be Brunnhilde or Mildred or someone else." Are they always named after women? "Of course!" he says with a laugh.

Arriving in style: Those not being chauffeured won't feel slighted here. Escalators will carry people from the underground parking into the center of the skylighted main lobby. Why? Gehry's group surveyed concertgoers at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion across the street and asked what they didn't like. "They hated the way they came out of the parking garage," says Webb, "so we wanted to make it more of an event."

Not pretty, but practical: Looking out of place among all the elegant gee-whizzes is a standard-issue electronic sign on which the words "Open" and "Will Call" crawl above the box office windows. Really? No trick treatment, not even changing the LED letters from red to, say, Pluto yellow? Or bending the rectangular frames into boomerang shapes? The Gehry team considered adding a few twists, but in the end, they decided that people needed to instantly recognize what it is and quickly navigate to the right window.