An In Depth Look to WDCH

         Some call it a marvel.  Others call it the best modern concert hall ever built.  But can this concert hall withstand the test of time as other great concert halls before it?  Walt Disney Concert Hall (WDCH) was opened by the Los Angeles County Music Center on October 24, 2003.  It is home to the world class orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil).  WDCH was a dream realized with the help of Lillian Disney, the widow of Walt Disney.  So much planning went into this magnificent hall that it took 16 years of planning to finally get the City of Los Angeles, and its beloved orchestra a new home.  The criteria I look for when evaluating a new concert hall or an old one is its unique architecture and design, acoustics, and aesthetic feel.

Walt Disney Concert Hall

            In 1987 Lillian Disney donated $50 million dollars to the LA Phil to jump start their quest to secure a new home.  With this money the LA Phil was able to hire world renowned architect Frank Gehry to draft a design that no other concert hall in the world would be able to match.  After much thought and numerous sketches Gehry came up with a design so outrageous no one can see how an orchestra would even fit in building with such a design.  Gehry would submit his sketches to the LA Phil and without hesitation the orchestra fell in love with Gehry’s design, they knew that no other hall in the nation or the world would be able to match the intensity it brought to the city and the intensity that matched the orchestra as well. 

Frank Gehry's initial sketch for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall

                      

            With its stainless steel curves and abstract shape, WDCH is a site to behold.  No other building in Los Angeles or U.S. for that matter can claim its splendor.  With a complete stainless steel outside one can only wonder what the inside has to offer with this oddity.  When you enter the main doors off of Grand Avenue you are greeted with the same curves as the outside.  Nothing seems to be the same on the inside just as foretold by the exterior.  Tall wooden branch like beams and flowered and patterned carpet you feel like you are walking into a forest.  A surreal moment exists when you look around to see how resembles an imaginary forest.  With a massive lobby space with a gift shop, restaurant, and a multi hundred seat lecture hall, and escalators, it almost feels like you are entering a mall, but with much more sophistication.  Making your way around the lobby you find plenty of things to occupy your time from eating to shopping to a pre-concert lecture.  Chimes sound from above, the signal to start making your way to your seat.

Inside the lobby at Walt Disney Concert Hall

            In an article in The San Francisco Chronicle James Sterngold had this to say, "I wanted it to be exuberant and exciting on the inside, first," Gehry says about his new creation. (Sterngold 2003)  Exuberant Gehry got right.  When you enter the hall itself your breath is immediately taken away.  You stand in awe of the multi leveled seating with stage specifically designed for the orchestra itself.  The entire hall is layered with wood from top to bottom, including the organ pipes themselves.  In honor of Lillian Disney and her generous donation, the seats are covered in a floral arrangement pattern to give the audience the perception that they are in a flower field.  Large sail looking waves of wood protrude from the ceiling giving the hall its continuity from outside exterior, to the lobby, and now to the hall itself with its massive curves.  Sitting there you wonder how can this sound good, it does not look like any concert hall I have ever sat in before?

View of the magnificent stage inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall

            The acoustics were designed by Yasuhisa Toyota of the Nagata Acoustics Corporation from Tokyo.  Mark Swed wrote this in an initial review of the hall for The Los Angeles Times, “If those expectations are that a concert hall can improve the world, who knows? Maybe. But if those expectations are better ones — that a spectacular venue with vivid acoustics can make the experience of music so immediate that sound seems to enter a listener's body not through just the ears but through the eyes, through every pore in the skin — then, yes, Disney Hall is everything and more than we might have hoped for. In this enchanted space, music can take on meaningful new excitement even in an age when many art forms are satisfied with oversaturated stimulation.” (Swed 2003)  This speaks volumes and he says it much better than I could ever about the wonderment of this place.  The LA Phil can do no wrong in this hall, but this hall make this orchestra sound and even play better than it ever has.  WDCH has increased the stature of the good orchestra into a great orchestra.  Mark Swed has this to say as well about the hall, “The organ's façade was designed by architect Frank Gehry in consultation with organ consultant and sound designer Manuel Rosales. Gehry wanted a distinctive, unique design for the organ. He would submit design concepts to Rosales, who would then provide feedback. Many of Gehry's early designs were fanciful, but impractical: Rosales said in an interview with Timothy Mangan of The Orange County Register, "His [Gehry's] earliest input would have created very bizarre musical results in the organ. Just as a taste, some of them would have had the console at the top and pipes upside down. There was another in which the pipes were in layers of arrays like fans. The pipes would have had to be made out of materials that wouldn't work for pipes. We had our moments where we realized we were not going anywhere. As the design became more practical for me, it also became more boring for him." Then, Gehry came up with the curved wooden pipe concept, "like a logjam kind of thing," says Rosales, "turned sideways." This design turned out to be musically viable.” (Swed 2003) 

            If you have the chance of visiting Los Angeles, I implore you to take the time to at least take the free tour of WDCH but if you really want to truly experience the hall, buy a ticket and experience it for what it is really built for, music.  To purchase a ticket or learn more about the WDCH, visit their website at www.laphil.com.

A youth concert with a full audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall

           

 

References:

WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL / Resonating with the hopes of L.A. by: James Sterngold
taken off the internet from: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/WALT-DISNEY-CONCERT-HALL-Resonating-with-the-2553231.php#ixzz2JzvHK6Av       

A wonder of sound and magic by Mark Swed  taken from the internet from: http://www.latimes.com/cl-et-review24oct24,0,2993534.story

Los Angeles Philharmonic Association: www.laphil.com