Walt Disney Concert Hall

The home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a four-storey steel sculpture by Frank Gehry that opened in 2003 and has become the architectural symbol of downtown LA. The performance hall inside is a wooden vineyard-style auditorium with the orchestra in the centre, surrounded by sloping audience tiers.

Free hour-long audio tours of the public spaces run on most non-performance days; tours of the auditorium are rarer. Music director Gustavo Dudamel made the orchestra one of the most famous in the world; tickets to a Disney Hall concert are still relatively easy and one of the best classical music experiences in the country.

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A story
Frank Gehry's curving steel hall took sixteen years from commission to completion, mostly stalled by money. When it opened in 2003 the polished steel cladding reflected so much sunlight onto neighbouring apartments that the temperatures inside spiked twenty degrees and Gehry had to send a sanding crew up the facade to dull the panels.

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