Glaser and Gehry walk into the Opera House…

Okay, a bad start to what would probably be a bad in-house designer joke but that’s who we discussed this week in Design History.

Milton Glaser, an American Graphic designer has a few well known designs such as his Bob Dylan poster and I Love New York Logo. My first impression of Milton Glaser was, honestly, “This guy looks scary”. 

He developed his own studio and is often cited as an influence by many designers and illustrators. Glaser has stated that when working on his drawings, he prefers to work alone, as well as when he’s on a project that requires more complex thought. Glaser’s work covers a large range, his style seemingly random making it difficult to see a pattern in his works.

Gehry v Utzon would be a fascinating fight to see. I chose the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as the Gehry work I would compare to the Utzon’s Sydney Opera House considering their comparable use. Both buildings use organic shapes, moving away from the rigidity of parallel lines and rectangles commonplace in buildings, using curves in a sense echoing a visual interpretation of soundwaves. Both buildings also use these curves to generate a feel for acoustics even though the shape of the building is not actually used in the acoustics but rather overridden by internal structures designed by specialized acoustic architects. Gehry’s building (the Walt Disney Concert Hall) appears much similar to his other works such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao as well as the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, the sense that metal has been bent and deformed giving it a crumpled paper look. The Disney Concert Hall has sails and upward points similar to the Sydney Opera House giving them another common point. The Opera House mirrors sails, giving the sense that it is an old ship docked in Sydney Harbour, a clear nod to the history of the harbour when the tall ships came with the first European settlers. Both these buildings, although housing much the same function, were built with a different intended outward sense and do this successfully, serving as icons in their respective cities.

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion