Ivory Palaces, Plus a Disney One

My Lord has garments so wondrous fine,
And myrrh their texture fills;
Its fragrance reached to this heart of mine,
With joy my being thrills.
Out of the ivory palaces
Into a world of woe,
Only his great eternal love
Made my savior go.

So begins the revival hymn of Henry Barraclough printed in 1915.

In Los Angeles there are two "ivory" public palaces. One is completed, and the other one is still under construction. There is another palace also under construction; it's not made of ivory, but of sheet metal.

The first palace I have in mind is the new J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, an enormous temple of a structure situated on a hill looking over the valley. To approach it, one must park the car and take a tram up the hill, which provides a good view of the valley.

After one more turn, one encounters this imposing white structure, glistening when there is sun, which is most of the time. It isn't made of marble, but the effect is the same.

Now I have some idea of what the Jewish pilgrims felt like when they went up to Jerusalem: "And now our feet are standing within your courts, O Jerusalem." Breathtaking. The structure itself is outdone only by the gardens, which occupy one of the sides of the hill.

The other public building is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Los Angeles, which is more than halfway toward completion. The view one gets from the freeway and Temple and Hill streets is a little scary.

Like the Getty Museum, it isn't made of ivory. It is constructed from poured concrete that feels like glass when you touch it, with a dark rose-ish color reminiscent of the mission churches of California.

What one doesn't see is the plaza, which occupies about half of the space of 5.5 acres of the church, the administrative and mini-convention space, and the cardinal's residence.

The cathedral itself will seat 2,800 people. It is gigantic. The windows are made of alabaster, which creates a luminescent glow inside the building. (The scaffolding could be a small city in itself.)

Up the street from the cathedral is the construction site of the Disney concert hall which is made from sheet metal. The architect is Frank Gehry, the architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the shrine to Jimi Hendrix in Seattle. A friend described the concert hall as a potato chip bag all crumpled up.

Of the three, the Gehry building is the most joyful, fun, and risky-inviting, and attracting, human response-especially mine. The museum overwhelms and the cathedral cannot be judged yet because "it ain't done, yet."

Besides, you have to see it in action as a liturgical gathering place before a judgment can be made. Its plaza, however, looks to be a significant contribution to the evolution of "gathering space."

None of them are made of ivory. But all of them are for people, and to construct them it took, and is taking, a lot of very, very wealthy people to put them up. The effect is the same.

Patronage and common contribution are putting up the cathedral. The other two are raised through foundations and patrons. The effect is the same: structures for human gathering.

It's less than a century since Harry Barraclough had his semi-ecstatic vision of "ivory palaces."

Can you imagine what he would have written if he saw these three palaces?

You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net