Walt Disney Hall, Heifetz's studio, MOCA

I had wanted to visit the Walt Disney Hall after reading an article about it in Newsweek magazine. It was described in the article as a warm and inviting concert hall, even with the metallic shell. I had also read a lot about Frank Gehry, and had wanted to visit buildings designed by him.

We arrive at about 2pm and took the audio tour. We started the tour on the ground floor. The lobby was quite small, but according to the audio guide, all glass walls open so the sidewalk will feel like part of the lobby. Luckily this is Southern California, where it doesn't rain:) At this level is a beautiful bar made of layered glass. Also on this level is a small cafe with art deco like furniture and lights.

On the second floor has a nice design feature. A space call BP Hall was created for pre-concert talk and other less formal occasion. The space itself has wonderful curve wooden walls that tapered inwards at the top, which made the space while wide open, cosy.

Walt Disney Hall does not have much windows but uses lots of skylight to brighten up the space. According to the audio guide, this was carefully conceived such that at night, interior lighting from the hall can be seen from outside, giving the hall a warm glow.

We were allowed to visit the auditorium since there was no performance scheduled on the day we visited. Like most concert hall, the auditorium had a piped Organ. Unlike most piped organ, this one have non vertical pipes, creating a dynamic center piece for the hall. The auditorium itself is quite small, with more seating in the terrace and sides compare to Davies Symphony hall. Acoustic is rumoured to be excellent, but unfortunately on this trip, I did not have a chance to experience that.

The hall has a beautiful garden where an outdoor amphitheater has been constructed for open performance and outreach efforts. Between the back splash of the amphitheater and the main building is a cleverly design narrow walkway with tall metallic walls on both sides. The walls are curved, reminding me of narrow canyons.

Frank Gehry designed a beautiful flower sculpture as a tribute to Mrs Disney. A beautiful rose is created out of cement, with pieces of broken Delft pottery embedded in them to give it a light blue color when viewed from afar. Spaces between the petals were filled with water to make it a fountain, giving the sculpture movement and reflection.

Overall, Walt Disney Hall is a beautiful structure with many thoughtful touches like BP Hall and Outdoor amphitheater. Unlike other music center, it is not grand. While the look is modern, the clever use of wood and curve shapes made the space intimate and warm.

Diagonally across the street from Walt Disney Hall is the Colburn School. We stopped by to visit Jascha Heifetz's studio, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I had thought Heifetz used to worked in one of the studios in the building, which was then preserved. Instead, a part of Heifetz's home was cut and move into Colburn school. The interior has the familiar Frank Lloyd Wright clean lines and oh-too-low furniture:)

The Museum of Contemporary Art is right next door to the Colburn School. We happened to walk into a Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition: You are the measure. I am not familiar with Gordon's work, but did enjoy the exhibition. My favorite exhibit was 3 walls of a house, cut into similar size. The outside of the walls are plain brick red roof title, and the other side showed the indoor details. An interesting play of lines on the house structure and contrast between the inside and outside of the house. Here are some pictures I found on the web for this work(1,2).

Gordon's doodles were another series which we enjoyed very much. There were doodles of plants with whimsical but aesthetic changes. One doodle can be found here.

The exhibition was reviewed by New York Times.

Other highlight of the visit includes a Jackson Pollock's painting.

We did not walk to the remote site as it was located in an iffy neighborhood and it was starting to get dark.

Dinner was at Checkers. This being a holiday weekend, the restaurant was deserted. When I read the menu, I was a little disappointed. It was not a very imaginative menu. However, the execution was superb. We started with simple salad. For entrees, I had the slow cook short ribs with polenta and my brother ordered the braised lamb shank with lentils. Both meat are very tender and flavorful. The short ribs has a hint of sweetness from the port wine reduction sauce and the mire poix bits on the dish adds a crunchy contrast to the fork tender meat. According to the wait staff, the restaurant recently went through a chef change, and the new executive chef is still working on the new menu. As such, I decided not to review the restaurant on Yelp.

After dinner, we decided to stop for drinks at Bonavista Bar, atop Westin Bonaventure. The novelty of a revolving restaurants/bars seems to have worn off these days. The only one in Bay Area, Equinox atop Hyatt Regency located at San Francisco's Embarcadero closed down in June this year. So, for me, it is actually a pleasant surprise.

View from this 35th floor revolving bar at night are mostly of the surrounding office buildings of major banks, some of which towers over the bar. This means there is limited visibility and one cannot quite see the mountains in background. For me, I enjoy cityscape and did not mind the obstruction. For more on the Bonavista Bar, please read my review on Yelp!