For the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Gehry wrapped
the complex billowing structure with stainless steel to
create a shimmering curvaceous building reminiscent
of a ship’s sails. The architect clad the floors, walls and
ceilings of the 2,265-seat auditorium with Douglas fir,
creating the sense of being inside a basket or musical
instrument. Designed well before the opening of
Gehry’s groundbreaking building for the Guggenheim
Museum in Bilbao (1991-97), Disney Hall marks his
adoption of Computer-Aided Three-dimensional
Interactive Application (CATIA), a software program
originally developed for the aerospace industry. By
applying software like CATIA to architectural design,
Gehry has been able to transform his fluid sketches and
sculptural paper models into lyrical and complex forms.