Bunker Hill — Disney Hall & the Cathedral

Gehry's steel sails, The Broad beside it, and Moneo's cathedral on its bluff — the cultural crown of Bunker Hill.

Key facts

Walt Disney Concert Hall, by Frank Gehry, opened 2003 — billowing stainless-steel sails, home of the LA Philharmonic.
Next door, The Broad contemporary-art museum opened 2015, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (not Gehry) — a white "veil-and-vault" lattice.
On its bluff above the 101 stands the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, designed by Rafael Moneo, dedicated 2002 — an ochre, angular landmark; a working cathedral, seen here only from the freeway.

Narration transcript

Lift your eyes to the hill on your right — that's Bunker Hill, the cultural crown of the city, and three landmarks sit up there. The one that stops everyone is the mass of curving, shining steel: that's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Frank Gehry's building from 2003, home to the LA Philharmonic. It looks like silver sails caught mid-billow, and the sound inside is as celebrated as the shape outside.

Right beside it, that white box wrapped in a honeycomb lattice is The Broad, a museum of contemporary art that opened in 2015 — a different firm, Diller Scofidio and Renfro, and a deliberately quiet neighbor to Gehry's fireworks. And a little further on, standing on its own bluff above the freeways, is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels — the big ochre-colored, sharp-angled building by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, finished in 2002. It's the mother church of Catholic Los Angeles. You're only seeing them from the lanes today, but if any of the three pulls at you, this is the exit to remember for another trip.