A Banished Fountain

I agree with The Times’ architecture critic that the Music Center’s proposed architectural renovation plan is “stunning” (“A Grand Idea in Theory,” by Nicolai Ouroussoff, Dec. 13).

What I find most “stunning” and unbelievable is that they want to demolish one of the city’s most beautiful public and interactive spaces, the wonderful pop-up fountain in the center court, and cover the graceful columns of the Mark Taper Forum with giant blank, repelling (versus inviting) walls.

Gone would be the sparkling elegance of the well-lit fountain at night and its playful enticement to children on field trips during the day. Gone too would be the promenade around the Mark Taper and that most treasured aspect of earlier Los Angeles architecture, openness. In their place would be yet another crowded urban space.

CYNTHIA PETERS

Los Angeles

*

While I applaud the plans to enhance and integrate the Music Center-Civic Center Mall area, I hope that the Music Center board of directors will not lose sight of the fundamental importance of what goes on inside the individual venues. Performance, after all, is the reason for their being.

The justly touted attention paid to acoustical values in the design of Disney Hall should guide the transition of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to the primary role of an opera house. Is this not the perfect opportunity to make some modest changes inside the Dorothy Chandler to bring it up to opera code? Enlarge the stage and open up the proscenium, letting out both sound and sight. Fully one-third of the seats have serious sight-line limitations for most of the stagings.

JOHN WRIGHT

Los Angeles