Curtain Rises on Final Design for Disney Hall : Concerts: Plans for the downtown center await formal approval by the county and Los Angeles Philharmonic, which will make its new home there.

Renowned architect Frank Gehry has come up with what may be the final designs for the proposed Walt Disney Concert Hall, expected to be one of the city’s premier cultural centers when it opens in downtown Los Angeles later this decade.

Gehry’s design for the future 2,350-seat home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic comes after more than two years of models, drawings and revisions. It must still receive official approval by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and representatives of the orchestra and the Los Angeles Music Center.

However, “as far as I’m concerned, Frank has done the final design,” said Frederick Nicholas, chairman of the Walt Disney Concert Hall Committee, which is overseeing the project.

“I think it’s a work of genius and will be the most important cultural building in Los Angeles, perhaps the most important building in Los Angeles,” Nicholas said.

The hall, on a stretch of Grand Avenue south of 1st Street, is expected to cost $110 million in funds generated by a gift from Walt Disney’s widow and private donations.

The 200,000-square-foot project will be across 1st Street from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and down the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Gehry’s design calls for extensive gardens and public spaces, plus a 5,000-square-foot museum of Disney and Philharmonic memorabilia.

Groundbreaking is expected in January for a 2,500-car garage whose construction would be paid for by a Los Angeles County bond issue, Nicholas said. The hall is expected to begin construction two years later. The earliest the Philharmonic could move into the hall would be its 1996-97 season.

Gehry’s Disney Hall designs will be on display starting Sunday at the Fifth International Exhibition of Architecture at the Venice Biennale. The Italian event is a showcase for work from 29 countries.

When the Disney Hall designs return from Italy, Nicholas said, they will be submitted for the required approvals.

One county supervisor and the county’s chief administrator said Wednesday that they expect the project to receive final approval from the Board of Supervisors within six weeks.

Supervisor Ed Edelman said he also expects the board to approve the use of county bonds to pay for the garage, which would cost $81.5 million. When interest costs are factored in, the 30-year bond would be for $100 million to $110 million, said Richard Volpert, a private attorney acting as the county’s negotiator in the Disney Hall project.

Edelman said the bond would be repaid from parking fees and not be a drain on the county’s cash-strapped general fund.

The county also would pay for security, upkeep and other unspecified operating costs once the hall is built. But Edelman said he expects parking revenues to cover these costs. The county is also providing the land for the concert hall. County officials have yet to reveal the estimated upkeep costs.

Representatives of Disney’s widow, Lillian, whose $50-million donation in 1987 launched the new hall, said Mrs. Disney and her daughters are pleased with the design.

The project has undergone several major revisions since Santa Monica-based Gehry won the commission in December, 1988. The hall’s acoustics adviser changed after Gehry was hired, requiring a new design, and the plans at one point also included a 350-room luxury hotel.

Plans for the hotel were dropped earlier this year, allowing Gehry to reinstate extensive gardens and public spaces that were part of his original winning design.

The hall’s lobby will be open to the public during the day, and gardens will open off assorted terraces surrounding the hall. A large area adjoining the hall will be used for preconcert lectures and other activities.

Waves of glass at the base of the building will be complemented by waves of stone that surround terraces. Calling his building “a big usable sculpture,” Gehry said everything from the terrace and backstage areas to rehearsal rooms and the Founder’s Room could be adapted to public performance spaces.

Plans call for a French limestone exterior and copper roof. Skylights and a large, soundproofed window at the back of the hall could augment late afternoon or early evening concerts. The street-level glass panels, gardens and concert hall windows are designed to make the hall “accessible, light and airy,” Gehry said.

Concert-goers would surround the orchestra, with about 250 people seated behind it, much as audiences do at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Gehry has compared the interior to a boat, with seating set on a wood base similar to a deck, and wooden and plaster “sails” above.

Nicholas said Gehry “has not signed off on the project and will probably continue to make some adjustments in the exterior and interior as we move along. He does that all through the design process, (but) it’s a refinement process now.”

The refinement is being done to keep costs in line with the $110-million budget set for Disney Hall, Nicholas said. That budget includes construction costs of $85 million to $90 million, with “soft costs” for architectural, engineering and consulting fees bringing the total to $110 million.

At the point construction begins on the hall, the Disney Hall committee expects the Lillian Disney gift to total $75 million, including accumulated interest. “Discussions have been ongoing between the Music Center and the Disney Hall committee about methods to raise the balance of the funds,” said attorney Ronald Gother, a member of the Disney Hall committee. “Fund raising is going to wait until we have all the arrangements with the county worked out, the design satisfactory and good budget numbers.”

County chief administrative officer Richard B. Dixon expressed optimism that the final details surrounding the project will soon be worked out. Supervisor Edelman agreed, but added:

“What we want obviously is before we put holes in the ground to be assured that there is sufficient money apart from any county money to finish the project. That has to be worked out. We don’t want to end up with a hole in the ground.”

Because Disney Hall will have about 2,350 seats, compared with the 3,200 seats at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the orchestra’s basic subscription season would be extended. Ernest Fleischmann, the Philharmonic’s executive vice president and managing director, expects the season to run 32 weeks, compared with 25 to 30 weeks in recent years; this season is 30 weeks long and next season will be 28 weeks long, he said.

Disney Hall would be used exclusively for music, Fleischmann said. Besides additional activities by the Philharmonic, he expects to book “a much wider range” of organizations. The impresario said: “I hope there will be a number of Los Angeles-based groups from the great gospel choirs to (Indonesian) gamelan orchestras.”

Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this story.