A $337-million expansion of the Colburn School, designed by Frank Gehry, is nearing completion in downtown Los Angeles with a scheduled opening in September.
Steel clouds hang suspended from the ceiling of a cavernous new space in downtown Los Angeles. their concrete-filled frames designed to pull the sound of a violin or a voice closer to the listener. This is the skeleton of the Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall. a $337-million project that marks Frank Gehry’s latest footprint on Bunker Hill.
As the structure takes shape for its September 25 opening, the vision behind the Colburn School’s expansion is becoming clear. The 1. 000-seat hall features an in-the-round design. intended to bridge the distance between those on stage and those in the seats. It is a calculated push for intimacy. aiming to solve what Colburn President Sel Kardan describes as a “missing piece of the venue puzzle” in a city filled with cavernous auditoriums and tiny recital rooms.
Gehry Partners chief of staff Meaghan Lloyd describes the architect’s intent as an immersive experience. The goal is for the audience to feel the performers. and for the performers to sense the audience’s reaction in real time. To achieve this. the hall incorporates an orchestra pit and a stage modeled after the scale of Disney Hall. ensuring it can support large-scale opera and dance alongside intimate chamber performances.
Beyond the main hall. the 100. 000-square-foot expansion includes a new Dance Center for the school’s Trudl Zipper Dance Institute. doubling its current capacity with four professional studios and a 100-seat theater. For the students of the Colburn School—which has served a population ranging from middle school to college age since moving to this campus in 1998—the facility promises more than just new practice space. It is designed to host over 200 events annually. serving as home base for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and a rental venue for classical and jazz productions.
The technical complexity behind the aesthetic is significant. The hanging steel clouds. constructed in the Netherlands by a firm specializing in ship hulls. rely on digital data to shape the hall’s acoustics. They will be tuned by Yasuhisa Toyota. the acoustical engineer who has collaborated on every concert hall project in Gehry’s career. Outside. the building’s metal cladding is coated in a luminescent pink paint dubbed “Pink Kandi. ” a distinct departure from the surroundings.
This project sits in a unique ecosystem of downtown performance spaces. filling the gap between the 415-seat Herbert Zipper Concert Hall already on campus and the 2. 265-seat Walt Disney Concert Hall nearby. It serves as the third Gehry-designed building on Bunker Hill, following Disney Hall and The Grand LA.
The September opening will mark the start of a weekend celebration. highlighted by a performance featuring a new work by composer John Williams. The inaugural program of fanfares is being curated by Seth MacFarlane, setting a high-profile tone for the hall’s debut. As construction crews finalize the details. the focus turns to the fall. when the school’s 2. 000 students and the broader artistic community will finally test the intimacy of a space years in the making.
Frank Gehry Colburn School Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall Los Angeles architecture downtown LA concert hall