27702 New Forms Taschen 130

Frank O. Gehry Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles, California,

1988- (project)

Located just down the Street from Arata lsozaki's Museum o( Contemporary Art, the Disney Concert Hall, hailed as Frank O. Gehrys first really large building in the United States has unfortu-nateiy not yet been built due to costrelated factors. It remains an mtriguing and undoubtedly influential design.

Set above the San Diego Freeway, the Cetty already stands out like a fortress or a monastery above Los Angeles. This is in part due to the vast retaining walls clad in cleft travertine. This Italian stone strikes an entirely new notę in the architecture of Richard Meier, and highlights the deep connections that his architecture has always had to the monuments of the past. Various forms of local opposition obliged the architect to abandon his trademark white surfaces. Even the metal panels used here will have a light beige tonę. Although he insists on the "Italian hill town" aspect of the design, the complex as it is being built does have a rather remote appearance, which is clearly alleviated as the visitor reaches the esplanade in front of the Museum. With its facilities not only for the J. Paul Cetty Museum but also for the numerous other activities of the Cetty Trust, this mountaintop monastery of a cultural center will be only partially open to the public. It will also conserve a func-tion of research and scientific study. As such it is unique, and perhaps unlikely to serve as a model for any other institution in the foreseeable futurę. In architectural terms, many critics have said that it will be a 1980s building completed at the turn of the century, and as such out of phase with newer trends. Known as a dyed-in-the-wool Modernist with a strict geometrie vocabulary usually expressed only in his trade-mark white, Meier does nonetheless succeed here in operating a delicate transition toward a period in which deep-seated references to historie tradition or even geological presence are expressed.

A morę complex case is that of Frank O. Gehry's Disney Concert Hall. Situated near Arata lsozaki's Museum of Contemporary Art, this home for the L.A. Phil-harmonic should be clad in limestone, like the American Center in Paris. Its form has been compared to an "exploding rosę," and this complex shape led to a certain amount of criticism. Due to projected cost overruns and the inability of fund raisers to find a complement to the $50 million given in 1987 by Walt Disney's widów Lillian B. Disney, it has been suggested that the building might be clad in gray titanium as opposed to the morę expensive limestone. As of the end of 1995, with a budgetary shortfall estimated at between $80 million and $120 million (according to Newsweek), the construction of the concert hall had not advanced beyond the underground parking lot.

In Europę, although many other examples of multi-use cultural facilities exist, one of the most interesting is Jean Nouvel's Fondation Cartier. located in Paris. Art exhibitions, smali concerts, theater and other cultural events can all be held in this

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