The Disney Concert Hall was based on Gehry's way of thinking and relating music to the listener. Lillian Disney donated $50 million for the building to be built in Walt's honor. The asymmetrical style of the exterior design, is a contrast to the symmetrical style of the interior, and the roof structure spans across the entire ceiling. The metal waves on the exterior, relates to the movement of a skirt 'separable from the body it presents, reorders, and conceals - folding and turning and stopping and starting as it stretches out'[Gilbert-Rolfe and Gehry, 2013a, p. 79]. The original plan was to clad the building in stone, until last minute when the client's decided against it, after seeing what happened to the American Centre (money ran out before it could be protected and soon discoloured). The discontinuity of the metal planes relates to music and its performance, it set the attendee up for a musical atmosphere. The curvature of the design acts as movement and draws you in through the entrance. Los Angeles as a city is soaked up in music, everywhere you go, so Gehry has played on this and designed the space in a way that the locals will understand and feel comfortable in (surface streets in particular, there stop/starts and right angles, which links to the speed and movement of the building.

Once the building was completed Gehry was quoted saying;

 "Now the shapes of the exterior of Disney Hall are based on sailing. When you're wing-on-wing, with the wind behind you, it forms a beautiful space. And if you look at the front of Disney Hall, it's wing-on-wing, it's the two sails, and you're at the helm." [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/gehry_pop/concert_hall.html] accessed 28th Jan 2015

As the design evolved and changed through complications, Gehry found new ways to inspire the design.

When it came to testing the acoustics of the hall, Gehry worked with Yasuhisa Toyota, and acoustical consultant. Together the built an area of the hall at 1:10 scale to test the sound and ergonomics of the space. The design of the ceiling billowing acted as an acoustical treatment to the space. Gehry's view was that the body can't shut itself off from music, but there is nothing to view with music, so his aim was to create a space that helped the audience to feel like they were seeing music through an architectural space.

'Music is time experienced through and in time - as architecture is space experienced as itself reformed' [Gilbert-Rolfe and Gehry, 2013a, p. 96]