Disney Hall: ‘Work of Art’ or Wet Cardboard?

Leon Whiteson’s critique of Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall was, as is usually the case with a Whiteson article, a brilliantly lucid review of this important project. However, the tendency to anoint “unbuilt” projects as “architectural masterpieces” is a contradiction in terms.

Gehry’s Concert Hall may certainly earn the accolade “masterpiece” in coming years, but a set of drawings and a presentation model do not deserve such impassioned applause.

As Gehry says, “My mind has to ripen first,” so do the qualities of great architecture--perhaps we should demur a decade or two before we crown the piece.

MICHAEL JOHN PITTAS, Los Angeles