Archinect - News

Frank Gehry gives Harvard Business Review a masterclass in delivering on time and on budget

2023-01-03T11:38:00-05:00

Archinect’s editorial is no stranger to covering project delays. In the second half of 2022 alone, we covered news of construction setbacks at the International African American Museum, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. However, such high-profile examples are far from outliers but are instead representative of an endemic issue in the AEC industry.

According to research by University of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, whose team analyzed 16,000 construction projects around the world, only 8.5% of projects are delivered on time and on budget. In search of an explanation, Flyvbjerg and his colleague Dan Gardner turned to what at first seemed an unexpected resource: Frank Gehry.

At first glance, Gehry’s spectacular, unorthodox exercises in form and materiality should inevitably lie within the 91.5% of projects that fail to meet their time or budget...

Frank Gehry's Los Angeles megaproject reaches the halfway mark

2020-08-31T13:34:00-04:00

Work on the Grand, a long-anticipated mixed-use complex designed by architect Frank Gehry has reached the halfway mark as construction carries on unobtrusively through the pandemic. The towering collection of apartments, stores, restaurants, movie theaters and a luxury hotel is rising on a full city block across Grand Avenue from Gehry’s famed Walt Disney Concert Hall at a time when few are around to witness its creation.

Roger Vincent of The Los Angeles Times checks in on the construction progress for The Grand, a forthcoming $1 billion mixed-use development taking shape in Downtown Los Angeles across from the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The project, designed by Gehry Partners, has been in the works for nearly two decades and is finally coming to fruition now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Vincent reports that the construction site, which employs roughly 400 workers who are practicing social distancing, is among the largest in Southern California at the moment.

Walt Disney Concert Hall lights up over the weekend with projections by Refik Anadol

2018-10-03T13:42:00-04:00

Celebrating its 100th anniversary, the LA Phil has put on quite the birthday extravaganza, kicking off over the weekend with performances by Chris Martin and members of the Doors; a special CicLAvia bike ride that stretched from Downtown's Disney Concert Hall to the Hollywood Bowl; and a series of vibrant projections from Refik Anadol.

Announced back in September, the local media artist used 45 terabytes of data derived from the Phil's archive to create a series of patterns then projected on the exterior of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Called 'WDCH Dreams', the media installation lit up the iconic Frank Gehry building beginning Thursday night, delighting passersby, and will continue to do so every evening through October 6th.

Refik Anadol to cover Walt Disney Concert Hall with vivid data projections

2018-09-13T15:42:00-04:00

One of the most recognizable buildings in Downtown Los Angeles—the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall—will be used as a canvas later this month. To celebrate the start of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new season, colorful patterns will be projected onto the metallic surface of the wavy concert hall for a little more than a week, courtesy of artist Refik Anadol.

For the LA Philharmonic projection series, called WDCH Dreams, internationally renowned media artist Refik Anadol dug deep in the digital orchestra archives—nearly 45 terabytes of data—and applied Google Arts and Culture's machine intelligence to it, which parsed the files into millions of data points that were then re-categorized and, with the help of deep neural networks, made new connections between LA Phil's "memories." According to Anadol, this process awakes the metaphorical "consciousness" of Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the result is a "radical visualization of the organization’s first century and an exploration of synergies between art and technology, and architecture and institutional memory."

WDCH Dreams, renderings by Refik Anadol Studio

To visualize the result of this process, Anadol will be using 42 large scale projectors, with 50K visual resolution, 8-channel sound, and 1.2M luminance in total, which should create quite a spectacular display on the stainless-steel fac...

Frank Gehry on the “ever-shifting” Disney Concert Hall: What could've been and what's to come

2018-09-12T15:00:00-04:00

Gehry likens his creative process to jazz, a fluid, always-evolving symphony of ideas, as he describes it. A main intention with Disney Hall, he says, was the relationships, or rhythms, between the different entities of people inside the hall, also ever-shifting. [...] Sherman said that there’s no concrete timeline in place for making such changes to Disney Hall. But that “any changes could potentially be in sync with the opening of the Grand.

Frank Gehry talks about his early visions for the Walt Disney Concert Hall as well as what future changes — both within and around the landmark — are being planned, especially once his nearly $1 billion mixed-use complex, The Grand, is built.

Gehry Partners reveal new design for the LA Phil Youth Orchestra

2018-08-27T18:17:00-04:00

Initially announced last fall, Gehry Partners' design for Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) has now been revealed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The new structure will be the first permanent facility for YOLA located in the Los Angeles neighborhood Inglewood.

Exterior model view of the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood, interior concert configuration. Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

The 25,000-square-foot, $14.5 million construction project will transform the former branch office of Security Pacific Bank in Inglewood.

Exterior model view of the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood, interior concert configuration. Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

With the aid of Gehry Partner's new facility, YOLA aims to double the number of students it serves providing free music training and academic support.

Exterior model view of the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood. Photo courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

Aerial model view of th...

Frank Gehry's Grand Avenue project presents latest design updates

2018-01-26T18:39:00-05:00

Gehry has completed new — and nearly final — designs for the Grand, an open-air complex of apartments, condominiums, movie theaters, restaurants and shops that promises to enliven a city block that has been mostly dead for half a century. [...] The delay helped improve the project, Himmel insisted. Five years ago, there was a "disconnect" between what Gehry wanted to build and what Related could pay for [...] Since then, Gehry has found ways to reconcile his vision with costs

Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.

But wait, there's more: the LA Times writes that developing the block on Grand Avenue would finally unlock a design feature Gehry himself "baked into his design for Disney Hall" a long time ago — the ability of the concert hall's curvy metallic facade to receive light and video projections from across the street could open up the opportunity to show live concerts happening inside also outside and entertain people in The Grand.

Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.

"We selected the metal surface that tested best for projection," the article quotes Gehry talking about his landmark Walt Disney Concert Hall. "You close that piece of Grand Avenue, put some chairs out there and you've got something special. We're not just building buildings, we're building places."

Bring on the food trucks.

Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.

Can beautiful architecture inspire Americans to become good citizens?

2014-11-26T14:04:00-05:00

A hundred and some years ago, an aesthetic force called the City Beautiful movement professed the theory that grand public buildings, lovely civic palaces, could inspire Americans to become good citizens. [...] Since the 1960s, though, it seems as if great civic architecture has become an embarrassment. Politicians who love to cut ribbons find it hard to justify paying for beautiful on top of functional. The result is a style I call Sunbelt Stalinism [...].

At Disney Concert Hall, Hadid Picks Up on Gehry’s Tune

2014-05-30T13:18:00-04:00

It was an artistic collaboration delayed by some 25 years: The London architect Zaha Hadid responded as much to Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as she did to “Così Fan Tutte” when she designed her undulating all-white set for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of Mozart’s opera this week (it closes on Saturday). “We were responding to the context, to Frank’s design,” Ms. Hadid said in a telephone interview from London.

Frank Gehry's iconic Disney Concert Hall turns 10

2013-10-23T18:38:00-04:00

Now known worldwide for its trademark curves, it's nearly impossible to imagine anybody but Frank Gehry designing Disney Hall. One critic recently lauded the exuberance of the building's design and "The way it seems eager to expand outward like a bunch of balloons in a child's fist." Gehry called it a sailing ship. “I like the image of it as something moving. Our culture is so filled with movement compared to a hundred years ago. Everything is moving or flying," said Gehry.

Gehry and Salonen discuss ten years of music at Disney Concert Hall

2013-10-16T16:15:00-04:00

To celebrate Disney Hall’s tenth anniversary, architect Frank Gehry and Conductor Laureate for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen reminisced on the building’s inspiration last night, at a discussion held at the Hammer Museum. Co-hosted by the LA Phil, far from the actual concert hall and its spotty downtown L.A. environs, the discussion’s moderator Nicolai Ouroussoff (former architecture critic for the New York Times) tried to tease out the relationship between architecture and music. While Salonen touched upon questions of classical music’s relevance, Gehry didn’t delve too deeply into the particulars of his design.

As Music Director for the LA Philharmonic from 1992-2009, Salonen oversaw the orchestra during its transition from the slightly-stuffy Dorothy Chandler Pavilion over to Disney Hall, and is highly regarded for whipping the Philharmonic into shape as a progressive and formidable cultural institution. The trajectory of the LA Phil is largely wrapped up in b...

Master acoustician, Yasuhisa Toyota, talks about kickstarting his career with the Disney Concert Hall

2013-09-20T14:59:00-04:00

"Our collaboration has been since 1989, and now it's long-term," Toyota says of Gehry. "With Frank, I learned many, many things." Chief among them, he says: "Flexibility." "His thinking is very free and without restrictions. His spirit and creative mind is [open]. And we were able to work together in this way," Toyota says. During the construction of Disney Hall, Toyota, ... was inspired by Gehry's design and perfected what he sees as his personal style of acoustics.

Nearly 10 years old, Disney Hall needs upgrades

2013-09-05T13:29:00-04:00

Panicky cost-cutting measures during construction left out elements that would have made the exterior and lobby more dazzling and the hall more flexible. The Music Center, which maintains the hall, seems in danger of taking the venue for granted, not eager to invest in it when it can bask in glory by doing nothing. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning a subway line under the hall, raising concerns that train vibrations will spoil the sound.

Perfectly Frank - LA's most acclaimed architect muses on missed opportunities

2013-07-29T18:40:00-04:00

“Los Angeles doesn’t take architecture seriously,” he says, “though I guess you could say that about most cities.” “What about Disney Hall?” I ask. "That’s just one building,” he says with amusement. There is nothing peevish in his attitude toward this place. He is a fan, waxing a bit protective of our image: “It’s easy from outside to portray us as La-La Land, still easy for Europeans to come here and make jokes about us.”

Frank Gehry says new subway could be 'disaster' for Disney Hall

2013-05-28T13:34:00-04:00

Frank Gehry has raised concerns that concerts at his Disney Hall in Los Angeles could be ruined by a planned subway line that would run close to the venue. Recent simulations suggest rumbling might be audible in the concert hall. These have provoked the architect to call for the Metro’s own noise projections, which two years ago predicted there would be no audible impact, to be reviewed.