Battling Over the Architecture of L.A.

Where are all our great patrons, music aficionados and assorted culture mavens who profess to call the shots in this town? Frank O. Gehry’s profoundly beautiful design is certainly not the real problem (“Sound Vision,” Calendar, Oct. 29).

After having a personal tour of Gehry’s studio to view the working drawings and models last year, Jean-Paul Ciuzel, former director general of both the Opera Bastille and the Paris Garnier, proclaimed it breathtaking. Los Angeles as front-runner of a new architecture for the 21st century is not chopped liver! Why do we feel so threatened? Surely we are not that shallow!

GERALD R. ROTH

Los Angeles

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If Disney Hall is successfully achieved it will happen not simply as the result of generosity, civic spirit nor even the timeless aspiration of Gehry’s design. Rather it would primarily be the result of the members of the Philharmonic and their director willing it to happen via their own artistry.

This was made very clear with their performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony on opening night of this new season (“Back With a Passion,” Oct. 26) and in that I feel they are surely destined for an unparalleled future.

JOHN CRANDELL

Sunland

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I applaud the effort of Mr. Ouroussoff to arouse the public to the cultural importance of the Disney Concert Hall, but your newspaper should be doing more to foster this project along the path to fruition. In the effort, there is an obvious parallel that your paper has missed: the epic 1950’s battle to fund and build the Sydney Opera House. This exciting and historic battle was won by the Australian public coming to the rescue raising the money by lottery. The Sydney Opera House is a troubled triumphant story that your newspaper should dramatize and portray as a ‘wake up call” to the citizens of Los Angeles. Had Primier J.J. Cahill and Danish architect Joern Utzen approached the project with the apparent listlessness of the present Disney Hall effort, there never would have been an Opera House in Sydney, which is considered one of the greatest modern architectural feats of this century. Some way must be found to energize the public to action before this important cultural center is lost amid failed funding efforts at the corporate or benefactor level.

WILLIAM K. SOLBERG

Los Angeles