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THESISFrank Gehry broke away from the ideals of modernism and changed from the use of composition into an “assemblage of different fragments” (Curtis 662), known as deconstruction, to form unconventional spaces using fragmentation and metaphors to form the Walt Disney Concert Hall into a “living room for the city.”

BACKGROUNDFrank Gehry was born in Toronto, Ontario to parents who did not really appreciate his creative side. Encouraged by his grandmother he pursued his dreams, went to school to get a degree in architecture and moved on to set up his own practice in Los Angeles in 1962 that eventually became Gehry partnership.

COMMUNICATION IDEAThe traditional starting point for a designer is to begin sketching until a clear idea forms and then to move on to modeling and finally create any documents that will be needed to build the piece. Gehry’s approach is very similar to the conventional method but he has a twist to it. Like all designers he begins with a sketch. These sketches are often very crude line drawings that look like a lot of scribbling to anyone other than Gehry. He works with them until his idea forms and then moves straight into model building where all of the kinks are worked out with three dimensional shapes instead of on paper or on a computer. Gehry’s designs are often so complicated that it is impossible to create on a computer so he and his team developed a special software with a light pen that would be touched to the corner of the model and automatically transfered onto the computer software, making the process much smoother.

As part of the after modern movement Frank Gehry is generalized as a post modern architect who, after further analysis, is more accurately categorized as a deconstructionist. Architects in the deconstruction movement use a method of fragmentation to create their buildings. Fragmentation is taking different volumes and shapes or pieces of volumes and shapes and putting them together in unrecognizable fashions.

Curtis describes this approach to architecture by saying “They did not rely on ‘composition’ but were rather assemblage of different fragments held together by force.” (Curtis 663). Instead of taking conventional shapes and rooms and composing them in new and more interesting ways, he takes new shapes and assembles them so that the spaces are made out of the resulting shapes formed by the collision of the volumes.

Along with the fragmentation of his buildings Gehry is most known for his use of metaphor in his works. The most common theme throughout his designs is the metaphor of a fish. The fish metaphor is shown in very visible ways in some cases like the fish lamp and in less visable ways in cases where he uses titanium scales or fluid fish like shapes. In special cases like the Walt Disney Concert Hall a building may hold a different metaphor but all seem to be water related. In the Walt Disney Concert Hall he uses a sail metaphor that is most apparent in the exterior but actually originated on the interior of the building and moved to the exterior.

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OVERVIEWThe Walt Disney Concert Hall was built as a commemoration to the famous Walt Disney to house the LA Philharmonic. The building was commissioned by Walt’s wife Lillian Disney who donated $50 million dollars to fund the building. Construction began in 1987 and lasted 16 years until its grand opening on October 24, 2003. To decide who would be in charge of the design of the building there was a competition from which Gehry was picked out the four finalists.

FRAGMENTATIONFragmentation is a part of the Deconstruction movement of Post modernism. The idea of this movement is to take different shapes and volumes and put them together in unconventional ways so that they collide to form different shapes that in turn make the spaces of the buildings. In contrast to modernism that uses composition of spaces Frank Gehry uses a technique refereed to as “assemblage”. (Curtis 605) Assemblage gives his buildings a design language of “...angles and tilted volumes introduced visual tension and ambiguities.” (Curtis 663) The idea behind using the forms was to “let the forms be the thing and to replace decoration, to get passion and feeling into the building without resorting to 1900th century models” (Gehry - Bringing Movement to Architecture).

Unlike other architects Gehry begins his buildings on the inside and works his way out. “Forget the exterior, it starts with the inside. That inside is the key issue.” (Gehry on Architecture of Walt Disney Concert Hall). The Walt Disney Concert Hall follows the same pattern. Since this building was to be used as a concert hall as well as the home of the Los Anglos Phil Harmonic there were cer-tain acoustical requirements that needed to be followed to make the space a success. “Inside of the hall follows the acoustical requirements and it started to become sail like, I wanted to make the outside look the same.”

Exterior: The iconic shapes known to the Walt Disney Concert Hall display Gehry’s use of metaphor in this building. The metal peaks are reconstructed sail like shapes that are put together to form an entirely new shape that is chaotic and calm at the same time.

Interior: The idea behind the interior of the Walt Dis-ney Concert Hall is that there is “a box and on either side of the box you have toilets and stairs with a foyer” (Frank Gehry on Architecture of the Disney Concert Hall). To make up these spaces there are a variety of shapes that Gehry cleverly crammed together. The cir-cular spaces run into the rectangular wooden pieces to create interest no matter where a person looks. All of this is covered in natural Los Anglos light that Gehry took advantage of by adding skylights to the building.

Object: One of the major attractions to the main performance space is the very large unconventional looking organ. The pipes of this organ are wooden rectangles instead of the traditional circular metal ones. Each pipe is strategically placed to give the instrument a chaotic look that when all put together works well.

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USE OF METAPHORGehry’s work is commonly known for having a fish metaphor throughout and even though this is not the main metaphor for the Walt Disney Concert Hall it is still visible in some aspects of the building.

The idea behind the metaphor came when some of Gehry’s colleagues began to look back to the Greek temples for inspiration. To Gehry this idea was not ac-ceptable. He said “if you’re gonna go back, why not go back to fish?” and the idea stuck. From there he applied the theory of deconstruction and began to distort the shape as far as he could before he lost the sense of it.

“From there I learned to work with those kinds of forms and capture that feeling” - Frank Gehry

In different designs there are different elements of the fish. In the museum he built in Spain the metal sheets on the exterior are put together in a way that look like titanium fish scales. This idea is mimicked in the ceiling of the Concert Hall performance space. The ceiling tiles are layered together to look like the actual scales on a fish.

Aside from the obvious elements of the fish in his de-signs there is a constant feeling of fluidity and water like movement. In the curves of the stair cases of the Walt Disney Concert Hall a person almost gets the sense of the circular tornado motion that water gets as it rushes down the drain. In the peaks of the exterior rood on the concert hall one can see the sail metaphor and also waves like you would see in the ocean when the water was rough. The slight curve up to the tip of each peak is very smooth and fluid very reminiscent of water.

In some of his more famous pieces the fish is also very prominent. Gehry designed a teapot for a well known website and situated on the end of the kettle’s spout was his signature fish. This was the most straight forward approach to the metaphor that can be seen in Gehry’s work. Most of the time there are smaller

less obvious hints to the fish or any other metaphor that Gehry may use. The idea of the use of metaphor along with deconstruction and fragmentation is to take the object of inspiration and translate it into an ab-stract form onto the project. In the Guggenheim Mu-seum in Bilbao, Spain Gehry took the idea of the fish and translated it with the fluid curves and movements of the exterior and the use of the titanium “scales”. In the Walt Disney Concert Hall Gehry took the idea of the sail and made sail like shapes on the exterior as well as references to it on the interior of the building.

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SAIL METAPHORThe Walt Disney Concert Hall is said to be “capable of evoking multiple associations, musical and nautical” (Curtis 664). These are the two major themes of the hall. When designing the inside based on the requirements for the acoustics Gehry began to see sail like features form. He took that idea and translated it throughout the rest of the building to keep to look and feel uniform. Gehry en-joyed sailing and had a good knowledge of the sport so he took his knowledge and translated it into the building.

Exterior: The exterior was originally supposed to be made of stone so that it would absorb the light better and look more appealing at night be after the titanium sheets were used on the Guggenheim Museum it was re-quested that the same material be used on the Walt Dis-ney Concert Hall. The shape of the peaks are fashioned after a sailing term “wing-on-wing” which “‘In sailing terminology, when a sailboat opens both the foresail and the main sail to a 180-degree angle to produce the maximum amount of sail area.” (Esa-Pekka Salonen)

Interior: The interior is where the sail metaphor in this building began. As the interior took shape the idea for the exterior fell into shape. The white of the spaces in the foyer resemble the white of a sail and the wood seems to allude to the wood of a boat. Not only is the sail reference apparent but the fluid movement of the shapes in the foyer alludes to the fluidity of the music meant to be performed in this building. Here Gehry’s love for sailing and music combine to make a beautiful space.

“Inside the hall follows the acoustical requirements and it started to become sail like, I wanted to make the outside look the same.” - Frank Gehry

Object: The organ in the performance space of the hall encompasses all of the metaphors like the rest of the space. The wooden pipes of the organ resemble masts or other poles that exist on the structure of a boat while the idea of music is clearly carried out in the fact that the object itself is a musical instrument. While the organ doesn’t retain the fluidity of the rest of the space the idea of deconstruction and assemblage are accurately displayed in the chaotic yet structured set up of the pipes.

In this building there is not one specific metaphor but a combination of ideas that have different prevalences in the design. The sail metaphor is the major idea followed by smaller accompanying ideas of music, water, the fish, and fluidity. All of these ideas are assembled just like the rest of the building so that they intersect and create unconventional combinations.

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“LIVING ROOM FOR THE CITY”Los Anglos is one of the most diverse cities in America when it comes to entertainment and things to do. Adding the Walt Disney Concert Hall just added one more thing to this list of attractions so Frank Gehry had to find a way to make this attraction more appealing to more groups. His way of doing this was the idea of creating a “living room for the city”. This meant that he wanted a place that was inviting on all levels possible to as many different groups as possible. The regular patrons to the LA Phil Harmonic would still come but the idea was to now attract more people and expose more groups to the art of music, mainly the younger generation. He wanted “an iconic destination people would identify with and feel like it was theirs.” (WDCH 10th Anniversary) All levels of the building had to be carefully planned so that they would reach out to all groups and could foster a connection with each person one way or another.

Exterior: The exterior of the building is the most iconic element of the design. The shapes created would not easily be forgotten and a person would know exactly what building they were looking at as soon as they saw them. Besides being easily recognizable they had to be easy to relate to . If a person could not relate to the building they were at least intrigued by the shapes and might make their way into the building out of curiosity.

Interior: The interior of the concert hall is a very inviting environment. There is elegance and class to the space that one would expect out of a concert hall but it does not hold any of the elaborate ,and sometimes gaudy, ornamentations that similar buildings from older movements would have had. The shapes flowed freely and guided you through the space inviting you in.

Object: The organ in the auditorium was a very intriguing piece in this building. At first glance it may not be apparent what they giant mass of wooden pipes is so a person may want to venture closer for a better look. In the act of getting a closer look the person would have to enter the auditorium and be exposed to the main purpose of this building.

When Lillian Disney had this project commissioned she wanted a place that would commemorate her husband while also giving back to the community. Gehry accomplished this by making a classically post modern building that was easily relatable to all. The older generation would come to this building to see the music they already love as well as see the advancements that were made in the design. The younger generation would feel more comfortable in this space because it was not as old an dated as some other concert halls are. The more up to date feel of the Walt Disney Concert Hall makes it feel more welcoming to a younger generation because it seemed to be built more towards them. The overall idea was to bring the city together and make music more accessible to all which Gehry accomplished.

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SUMMARYThrough the use of deconstruction, fragmentation, and metaphors he assembled an inviting space that would serve the community for years to come. The post modern look appealed to the younger generation while still keeping some elements very classic and elegant to continue to attract an older generation as well. “Assem-blage” works very well in this building to create interest that the older idea of composition could not achieve.

EXTERIOR INTERIOR OBJECT

FRAGMENTATION

USE OF METAPHOR

SAIL METAPHOR

“LIVING ROOM FOR THE CITY”

• Abstracted sail shapes• Shapes and volumes

“assembled” to make composition

• Collision of 3-dimensional forms

• Pipes are fragmented and assembled

• Chaotic but structured

• Sail metaphor• Scales like in the fish

metaphor• Fluidity like water

• Wing-on-wing styled peaks

• Translated from interi-or shapes looking sail like

• Fluid like water and music

• Sail like shapes began to form

• White and wood point to boat materials

• Fluid movements relate to water

• Began to look sail like

• Fluid movement guides you through the space

• Elegant and classic while still being post modern

• Sense of structured chaos

• Wooden pipes mimmick masts

• Creates curiosity and invites you in to look closer

• Creates curiosity• Welcoming to all

groups

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Text

Curtis, William J. R. (2009). Modern Architecture since 1900. New York; Phaidon Press Limited.

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Wing on Wing. Retrieved November 21, 2013 from, http://www.esa-pekkasalonen.com/compositions/wing-on-wing

Jone, Rennie. (October 23, 2013). AD Classics: Walt Disney Concert Hall / Frank Gehry. Retrieved November 21, 2013, http://www.archdaily.com/441358/

Walt Disney Concert Hall 10th anniversary. Retrieved November 21, 2013. http://www.laphil.com/wdch10/wdch/vision.html

Video

Miguel Andrade, 2008. Frank Gehry on Walt Disney Concert Hall. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NdrsbBu6as

Geekroller, 2007. Frank Gehry on the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht6lqFfhk1M

ForaTV, 2009. Frank Gehry on the Architecture of LA’s Disney Concert Hall. Retrieved From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZoR6SpmqSQ

ForaTV, 2009. Frank Gehry - Bringing Movement to Architecture. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eBOV1JiWao

Image

Concert Hall night scene (page 1)The top 10 must sees and hidden gems of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Copyright 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2013. http://www.discoverlosangeles.com/blog/top-10-must-sees-hidden-gems-walt-disney-concert-hall

Sail Diagram (page 5)yachtworld. com. Wing Sail Cup Winner. Retrieved December 4th, 2013. http://www.yachtworld.com/boat-content/2010/05/wingsail-cup-winner/

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Image (continued)

Interior of ceiling and stairs (pages 1-3)The Walt Disney Concert Hall. Retrieved December 3, 2013. http://wideworldofgeometry.pbworks.com/w/page/14141562/CEOs%205

Organ and auditorium (pages 1,2,3,5)A forest of pipes: The story of the Walt Disney Concert Hall Organ. Retrieved December 4, 2013. http://aforestofpipes.com/

Foyer and Dining Spaces (1 and 5)The Guide: Walt Disney Concert Hall. Hopscoth press INC. Copyright 1995-2013. Re-trieved December 4, 2013. http://www.herecomestheguide.com/southern-california/wed-ding-venues/walt-disney-concert-hall/

Concept Sketch (page 1, 2, amd 6)Jeremiasz Siezkco (ARCH1390). October 8th, 2010. Retrieved December 4th, 2013. http://jeremiaszsieczkoarch1390-2010.blogspot.com/2010/10/week-11-more-on-walt-disney-concert.html

Digital Drawing (page 1, 2, and 6)Jeremiasz Siezkco (ARCH1390). October 8th, 2010. Retrieved December 4th, 2013. http://jeremiaszsieczkoarch1390-2010.blogspot.com/2010/10/week-11-more-on-walt-disney-concert.html

Sketch (page 1 and 6)Walt Disney Concert Hall. Arcspace.com. September 9th, 2002. Retrieved December 4th, 2013. http://www.arcspace.com/features/gehry-partners-llp/walt-disney-concert-hall/

Teapot (page 4)20 Stainless Steel Kettles you should whistle at! Retrieved December 4th, 2013. http://ifit-shipitshere.blogspot.com/2008/12/stainless-steel-tea-kettles-you-should.html