The train arrived in Los Angeles in the evening.
The Metro hotel was visible from the street outside the station, so we stayed there.
It was a reasonably nice place.
Next day, we took a walk to see if we could find La Brea tar pits, when suddenly appeared a crowd, a host of...oops, this fantastic building.
We walked to it and found, as I had suspected, that it was the L.A. Phil's new concert hall.
In spite of my misgivings (it might be that all the concert halls in the world have been alerted to my person non grata status by the evil cabal that runs such things)
We decided to take the tour
Must have been someone's day off because the tour was terrific and the people were all nice.
The Disney hall does to Benaroya what "Stars and Stripes" does to "Radetzky" (see previous post)
There is a walkway around the top of the building that gives one a look at the surrounding landscape. There are gardens on the patio on the second (or third) floor
I bought the T-shirt
This is Disney Concert hall.
It's a Gehery.
Like the Bilbao museum.
But not like the EMP.
(we'll get to that later)
Of course L.A. has real money, unlike Seattle piddling scrapings from the wallets of land developers and purveyors of cheap car parts. (we'll get to M-soft later)
L.A. after all is the home of the Major Major art form of the United states of America, even eclipsing Jazz and Rock for overall impact on world society.
This one started with 50 mil from Mrs Disney who wanted something that reminded her of a church covered in vines....hmmm.
I guess if you can see the virgin Mary in a burnt taco...
Nontheless, it is a lovely building, an inspiration, if you will.
Looks to me like music striving to flight, along with the swoops of a composer's baton (Esa Pekka Solonen's)
Benaroya started with a paltry 15 mil to Gerry who wanted a building with his name and picture all over it.
It wasn't designed by Gehery.
It's built over a train tunnel which leads to some interesting sub-sonic rumblings in the basement where Soundbridge is.
To counteract the train (and bus noise)the main hall (Taper) is isolated by 2 or three hundred rubber (probably more like neoprene) mounts.
They claim that this will even make it safer in case of an earthquake.
Boeing tried that one on a pair of buildings once.
When the earthquake came, the two buildings started banging into each other and were about the only ones that did get damaged.
So who knows about that.
The interesting to me is the possibility of deterioration.
In my years as an auto mechanic, I've had lots of experience with failed rubber like substances, most notably motor mounts, they get soft, they get brittle, they get weak.
So who knows what will happen in years to come when it begins to settle and strange buzzes begin to interrupt the show.
A dumpy looking thing that is supposed to look like a lantern.
A lantern surrounded by skyscrapers on all sides.
So the Seattle Art Museum can find it in the dark, I suppose.
(Btw, SAM is no longer on my s-list)
I promised more on M-soft, Gehery, and the provincial tastes of the stuff that floats to the surface of Seattle society.
We
HAVE a Gehery building, the EMP. The EMP which looks like God caught pneumonia and hawked up a slimy pus filled lunger just barely missing the George Jetson designed "Space Needle"
Yuck!
It was perpetrated by M-soft money.
BTW Lower Queen Anne already had a blobular building a few blocks from this disgusting monstrosity. A cute cave like thing that was the home to several small enterprises (had a nice Mexican dinner there once)
There was an incredible howl about it that led to it's demolishment.
Now there is a weed filled vacant lot there (last time I checked)
And the EMP.
Some improvement.
Anything with any character in this dingy little city gets dumped, the Kalakala, the Twin Teepees, etc
Lame as it is, the Googly (?) Mannings building in Ballard is about the only architectural personality we have left.
Really the existence of the L.A. Hall really reminds me of what a pathetic little hick town I was fortunate enough to be born in.
(lemons and lemonade, if you catch my drift)
Stay tuned.
