L.A. rhapsody - Window on the West; Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall - Brief Article

Sunset, Oct, 2003 by Matthew Jaffe

As the Walt Disney Concert Hall began to rise above downtown Los Angeles, its girders and beams resembled abstract sculpture more than a building's structural skeleton. Those improbable angles only baited at what was to come, a stainless steel-clad Frank Gehry design that has been likened to origami, a clipper ship with billowing sails, or a blooming flower.

The interior, on the other hand, with its curving walls and Douglas fir ceiling, suggests a cello or a violin. Gehry has likened his work with acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota to "riffing," while conductor Esa-Pekka Salohen has described the new home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic as "the perfect instrument for studying the future and potential of symphony music." In short, riffs is a place to be inside the music. Opens Oct 23. First St. and Grand Ave.; www.laphil.com or (323) 850-2000.