Hall Project’s Ship-Shape

Publicist Elizabeth Hinckley doesn’t mince words as she prepares the weekly group of VIPs for a tour of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the $274-million stainless steel-plated structure rising like a futuristic sailing vessel over Grand Avenue in downtown L.A.

“It’s an active site,” she tells a small group of reporters and two folks from the United Talent Agency. “No wandering off ... and try not to talk.” Glances are exchanged as the group dons hard hats, safety glasses and bright orange vests.

“I haven’t been down here since Ricky Martin,” a UTA agent notes as she pulls on a pair of work boots. “About a year ago, we had him do the whole opera thing.”

The concert hall won’t open for another year, but Hinckley, the director of public relations for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has been giving tours of the place since last summer. It helps raise money, she said. One patron donated more than $1 million after she visited.

Hinckley explains “the thought process of the building.” In 1987, Lillian Disney donated $50 million in seed money, and planners spent the next decade or so designing it. Behind the tour group, 500 workers diligently hammer away at the 293,000-square-foot structure that Hinckley says has no right angles. The computer-generated plan is so complex that builders have used a modified global-positioning system to place stainless-steel plates on the building’s exterior.

Inside, the tour moves up four flights of handrail-free stairs to overlook what will be a grand staircase at the building’s entrance. “No Stairmaster for me tonight,” the agent grumbles. Hinckley is hardly winded. “This will be a lot of air and space,” she says, motioning toward a large window overlooking Grand Avenue. For now, the air is thick with construction dust, the floors are crowded with boards, steel girders and generators and the view is obscured by scaffolding. A fellow from the Sunday Times of London asks: “What’s the color scheme going to be?” The answer: That is to be determined.

Then the group heads into the gem of the tour--the main auditorium designed by architect Frank Gehry in collaboration with acousticians Yasuhisa Toyota and Minoru Nagata. A crane sits in the middle of what will be a theater-in-the-round. “Here you are part of what’s happening,” she says of the auditorium. “You’re part of the experience.” Echoes of machinery fill the 2,263-seat hall. Overhead is a curved ceiling made from Douglas fir. Many people, says Hinckley, say it looks like the inside of a ship’s hull. This portion of the building should be completed by May, then crews will spend all summer tuning it. “We’ll hire professional listeners,” she says.

From there, it’s on to the rooftop gardens. Next year, visitors will be able to sit amid dense trees and enjoy city vistas. Now, the place looks like a community of empty swimming pools. A few empty lawn chairs sit in one corner. Everyone is impressed by visions of a lush garden escape in the middle of the city. “This building is much more than a concert hall,” Hinckley says.

The 90-minute tour ends in the dressing room of the L.A. Philharmonic’s conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. It’s a modest-sized space with a slanted wall of windows that looks out onto a pile of dirt, an area that will soon be a private garden. “For many of you, this is probably the only chance you’ll get to be in [the conductor’s] dressing room,” Hinckley says. The group seems unmoved.

Soon, people start walking out. But Hinckley squeezes in one more important detail: The project, she says, is “on budget and on time.”

Target: British Men

Gwyneth Paltrow caught the ire of the British press recently after complaining to a magazine that she only had two dates during a stay in London this spring. “British people don’t seem to ask each other out on dates,” she told the magazine Now. “If someone asks you out, they’re really going out on a limb, whereas in America, it happens all the time.”

Paltrow’s sentiments echoed those of Canadian writer Leah McLaren, who lamented that when it comes to dating, British men are “the worst on the planet.”

“They were as charming as [Oasis singer] Liam Gallagher after 12 pints,” McLaren wrote in the magazine Spectator.

The observations of Paltrow and McLaren provoked a flurry of headlines and columns. It didn’t help that Heather Graham told journalists at the premiere of “The Guru” in London that British men are “cold” and “emotionally illiterate.”

One newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, responded with a “Miss Moneypenny” defense.

In an interview with Samantha Bond, who has portrayed 007’s secretary in James Bond films, the actress defended British men, saying they were as skilled in dating as their American counterparts.

“I think the English man has great charm; he is highly intelligent and surely his reluctance to pounce on a first date can only be a mark in his favor,” Bond said, according to the Daily Telegraph.

“It shows a degree of integrity and maturity, and one wonders what American women are looking for if being seduced is the guideline of a good date or not.”

Quote/Unquote

“The problem with me, I’ve decided, is that I have no charisma, [but] I don’t like charismatic people. Only healthy people are charismatic. I like [messed up] people who can’t even carry a conversation. Let me introduce my band ....”

--Aimee Mann at an Amnesty International benefit concert at the John Anson Ford Theatre last week.

City of Angles runs Tuesday and Friday. E-mail angles@latimes. com.