Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall sits downtown as if it was an artichoke dropped between the flat plains of the Los Angeles Music Center and the grand Tetons that make up the California Plaza. Iceberg lettuce, cauliflower, prickly pear – the building hangs onto its square block, a small child with a chip on its shoulder just begging for a fight: “My reflection, made with buffed stainless steel, will dazzle and blind you; my edges, made with a can opener, will give you a good gash, I dare you to call me names!”
Yet it is a chip on a young blokes shoulder, and no matter how lit up the building is – by the heat of the sun or the klieg lights of a film production – Disney Hall remains a minor sibling in the buildings of downtown Los Angeles. Gehry has made a trifle, an attempt at craft art, a building that at times looks like the prows of a dozen ships colliding and at other times like a model airplane peeled from an aluminum beer can. It is a steel pop up book, a quilted teapot cozy made from a teapot.
Given its reception as an important part of the downtown skyline, one would expect the Hall to rise up from Bunker Hill as the Matterhorn rises out of Anaheim, the home of the music hall’s patron. It doesn’t. It sits like a withering vegetable, an aging piece of craft art left out in the sun too long. And seen from the corner of 2nd and Olive, Gehry’s hall seems to ask gamely for the jester who dropped their cap to come back and reclaim it.
Tags: architecture, Disney Hall, Frank Gehry, Los Angeles
