Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood
Hodgetts + Fung

Hodgetts + Fung freshens up a revered concert venue with an enlarged shell and acoustics worthy of world-class musicians

© Lara Swimmer / Esto

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By Deborah Snoonian, P.E.

Los Angelenos have enjoyed outdoor concerts at the Hollywood Bowl for generations, while musicians have felt just the opposite. Patchwork solutions like the sound-diffusing sonotubes installed in 1970 and the fiberglass spheres added in 1980, both designed by Frank Gehry, did little to assuage the problem. By the 1990s, the Bowl’s beloved but crumbling 1929 Moderne shell, the fourth of a series built in the 1920s, had literally rusted into place on its steel wheels.

In 2000, the county hired Los Angeles architects Hodgetts + Fung to overhaul the structure. Lawsuits lodged by nervous preservationists stalled the project more than once, but construction finally began in October 2003. Nine months later, an elegant new shell retains the character of the original while satisfying the needs of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Bowl’s primary leaseholder, as well as the variety of other pop and classical acts that cross its stage every year.

Besides being flexible enough to accommodate acts ranging from Madonna to Morton Feldman, the shell had to be enlarged for orchestral performances and shored up against earthquakes. Back-of-the-house niceties like recording studios and a library, championed by a project manager who left the job midway through, were nixed in favor of a simplified (read cheaper) program. Unfortunately, Hodgetts + Fung’s proposal to rebuild reflecting pools near the stage was also shelved (the original pools were removed in 1972 to make way for pricey seating close to the stage).

The new shell echoes the older one’s proportions and form but is about a third larger in volume. Its concentric rings appear circular from the audience, but they’re actually elliptical, a shape the architects took pains to refine aesthetically and acoustically, working with Jaffe Holden Acoustics. The obvious addition is the aluminum “corona” suspended over the stage, which is raised and lowered by means of pistons and nautical-grade winches. Together, the corona and shell produce a reverberant sound that helps musicians hear each other, and therefore play better, and engineers now rely less on pure amplification to project sound to the audience of nearly 18,000.

Want the full story? Read the entire article in our January 2005 issue.
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Formal name of Project:
Hollywood Bowl

Location:
Hollywood

Total construction cost:
$25 Million

Owner:
County of Los Angeles; leased to Los Angeles Philharmonic

Architect:
Hodgetts + Fung
5837 West Adams Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
tel-323.937.2150
fax-323.937.2151
www.hplusf.com