Wave Theory

by Paul Hodgins (Excerpts) / The Orange County Register (December 18, 2005)

Cesar Pelli thinks so. The celebrated Argentine architect was granted one of Orange County’s most noteworthy commissions for a public structure: the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, which is scheduled to hold its first performance September 15 (2006).

Dreamed about for two decades, the $200 million music complex will include a 2,000-seat home for the Pacific Symphony and a 500-seat venue for more intimate concerts. It’s part of a still unfolding master plan for a cultural center of grand proportions.

South Coast Repertory, which became the first resident of Costa Mesa’s arts neighborhood more than a quarter of a century ago, features mostly spoken-word theater; the Orange County Performing Arts Center, completed in 1986, hosts opera, musical theater and big-name entertainers; and the Orange County Museum of Art may build a multistory home nearby. An expansive pedestrian mall will form the heart of the arts neighborhood and link all of its buildings.

The concert hall has passed a milestone in its construction phase: its signature, an undulating curtain of glass that forms the north wall, has taken shape during the past few weeks. After almost three years of construction, the public face of Pelli’s creation is finally beginning to emerge. It’s a face that Pelli thought long and hard about before setting pencil to paper. “I wanted to design a very Southern California building,” Pelli said. “The undulations of the walls reflect for me a number of things: the waves of the Pacific Ocean as well as the waves of sound that will be emanating from the performers.”

Pelli, 79, who lived in Los Angeles when he worked for Gruen Associates 1968-76, thinks his new concert hall, as well as his design for the expanded South Coast Repertory theater complex next door, captures a philosophy he associates with our part of the world. “There is a certain fluidity and ease of life that is so very typical of Southern California,” said Pelli, whose firm is based in New Haven, Conn. “And the buildings reflect that in the sense that they are elegant but not uptight. I wanted to create welcoming, friendly buildings that were very open.” “I think the complete visibility of the lobby is very important. I like that anybody outside will see everybody inside. That theatrical sense of being on display is very Orange County,” he added.

Orange County brings to mind other characteristics that he tried to capture in glass, stone and steel. Pelli said, “When I think of Orange County, I think of a unique combination of leisure with hard work, and of people being laid-back but focused and intense at the same time. It’s an extremely dynamic place where things are always popping. I believe that (I) combined both qualities in this concert hall.”

Pelli said he thinks of symbolic implications in all his work. The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, his most well-known design, are a marvel of modernity - the 88-story high-rises are the world’s second-tallest buildings, topping out at 1,483 feet. But the shape of each tower is based on geometric patterns common to traditional Islamic architecture, reflecting Malaysia’s Muslim-dominated culture.

Though the concert hall’s wavy glass wall holds many layers of metaphorical meaning for Pelli, it also relates to its environment on a pragmatic level, the architect said. It is sheathed “with a single thickness of glass - totally clear glass, water-clear, (from which) all the iron has been extracted. Most glass has a greenish tint. This has nothing, no filter. You can only do this kind of thing in Southern California because your temperature range isn’t too great. In other climates, the interior has to be more protected.”

Designing a building that aspires to make a public statement and create a synergy with its surroundings is a wasted effort if it can’t be seen properly from the street. Visibility is a crucial element in every example of iconic urban architecture, according to architect Ronald Frink, “There has to be a relationship to the community. That’s just as important as the signature of the design. The Guggenheim museums (in New York and Bilbao, Spain), the Sydney Opera House, Disney Hall in L.A. - all of them have tremendous visibility. The siting of a design sets the context for how (it) is perceived. It has to have a coherent dialogue with its surroundings. Something like the Kennedy Center (in Washington, D.C.), as big as it is, doesn’t do that.”

On those terms, Pelli’s concert hall seems to have everything going for it. Approached from the new pedestrian mall, the glass wall will be visible for several hundred yards, and there’s already a fascinating interplay between the building’s north side and Segerstrom Hall, (which sits across Town Center Drive) and South Coast Repertory next door, whose long, glass-enclosed foyer curves away at a right angle to the concert hall’s curtain wall.

“This building plays a kind of duet or a dance step with Segerstrom Hall,” Pelli said. “Whereas the older building is very heavy and solid, the new one is very light and lyrical. But they both have these open, glassy fronts. You’ll be able to wave to your friends across the street when you’re at the symphony and they’re at the opera.”

Pelli’s work is admired by those who matter in Orange County --- notably developer Henry Segerstrom, whose vision and business acumen helped turn farm fields first into the county’s commercial nexus with South Coast Plaza, which opened in 1967. A decade later, the neighborhood began its second transformation into a cultural center, bolstered by the Segerstrom family’s donations of land and money. South Coast Repertory opened the original version of its present home in 1979; the Performing Arts Center followed seven years later with its 3,000-seat multipurpose hall.

Pelli has long been a part of Segerstrom’s urban vision for the South Coast Metro area. “I’ve known Cesar Pelli for 30 years, since the days when he lived here in Southern California,” Segerstrom said. “I remember being impressed by his design” for the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, which “I think is a classic of L.A. architecture.” Pelli’s first commission for C.J. Segerstrom & Sons was the Plaza Tower, a 21-story, stainless-steel landmark on nearby Avenue of the Arts that’s notable both for its curvilinear west wall, which catches sunsets in spectacular fashion, and its smooth, reflective surface. (Stainless steel and other high-gloss finishes are a Pelli trademark.)

“I’d been aware of the stainless-steel building in London that he designed,” Segerstrom said, referring to the 800-foot-tall Canary Wharf Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Europe. “I contacted him, we talked and he did the Plaza Tower for us.” Segerstrom calls it “one of the most beautiful buildings in Orange County.”

A sacred task

“With performing-arts centers, the thing that always interests me the most is the interplay between the art of music and the art of architecture”, Pelli said. “I have a phenomenal admiration for performers. As an architect, I sit down and come up with an idea, build a model, test and examine it for years until we’re completely sure it’s right. For a performer, the result is instantaneous. That, to me, is an act of magic. “I feel that creating a building for this magic to take place day after day is a kind of sacred task. I need to do my best to prepare people for the experience. I want someone to look at this building and think, ‘Ah, this is the vessel that will transport me to other realms.’ ”