Truth be told, I “was” not a big fan of Frank Gehry in my formative years of design education and practice. It is probably not an uncommon opinion to hold. Modernist schoolers took pride in criticising Gehry or anything that looks like Gehry (without ever actually knowing or experiencing his work in depth). I was among those morons.
My opinion about Gehry shattered in three organic steps.
First, back in 2010, I was staying in Santa Monica, right next block from his house. My morning and afternoon routine was to take a bicycle and ride around the block again and again just to see that crazy house on a corner, where every other building was a typical house with a pitched roof in a typical affluent Santa Monica neighbourhood near the beach. I shamelessly kept stopping near the house, stared at the building in awe, and wondered what sort of audacity and madness this is!
Second, I became friends with a violinist who played for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (LA Phil), Robert Gupta (a TED Fellow; he also happens to be a highly accomplished biologist and a social activist). Robert invited me to a chamber concert by LA Phil at the Walt Disney Concert Hall—the famous Frank Gehry edifice, and also LA Phil’s home. Like a typical architecture fanboy, I took every opportunity to explore the nooks and crannies of the building before the concert. I was beyond thrilled and excited about getting in the building, but yet to be sold on it, and still holding my modernist indoctrination tightly.
Next year, in 2011, Robert and his friends were organising a charity concert at the largest “slum” in the US, Skid Row in Los Angeles. Skid Row hosts a large number of people with mental illness, along with a government-run small hospital for mental patients. The doctors there recommend classical music as a healing element for the patients, where Robert and his group at “Street Symphony” used to organise concerts at the hospital regularly. I happened to be in town, and they were planning a concert. Robert told me to help with photography, and I happily volunteered. Part of the prep for the concert was doing rehearsals in the practice rooms inside the Disney Concert Hall. Holy moly! I was secretly more excited about getting the rare opportunity of exploring the back offices, storage facilities, instruments, green rooms, practice and rehearsal spaces of the Gehry masterpiece—the actual functioning side of the fancy, glossy urban sculpture.
Musicians at LA Phil love the building! No, it is not about the shiny, free-form outside, but their love is about how perfectly the building functions for everything that they need. They say there is no other theatre they have performed at with this level of detail and capability. Every orchestra needs a home theatre, where the theatre itself becomes part of their music, as the architecture directly “plays” a part in shaping and morphing the acoustics of what is being played. That’s why orchestras rarely tour; they invite people to their home, as that home is one of their critical instruments. As I heard from LA Phil musicians, most theatres either can host chamber music (smaller groups) or a large orchestra; they don’t work well for both. Disney Concert Hall, in their opinion, is an exception. It can host both chamber and orchestra perfectly. It is an acoustical design marvel.
This is what changed everything about my shallow opinions about Gehry. It is the testimony of the everyday user of a building that holds more weight than critics. After spending that day at the back of the house of the building with musicians, I started looking at Frank Gehry and his work differently. He was definitely one of the most brilliant minds in architecture ever. And we have to look beyond his dancing metallic forms to understand his magic; there is more to it.
Rest in peace, maestro. The universe lost a star today.
