Search a tourist attraction

Occupying a broad hollow of the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounded by 120 acres of greenery, the largest natural amphitheater in the world is a popular concert site and summer home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. The setting for dozens of movie scenes and many historic concerts, the Bowl is widely revered not just as a performance space but as a Hollywood icon.Formerly known as Daisy Dell, the site was acquired in 1919 for community sings, concerts and pageants and began hosting L.A. Philharmonic summer concerts in 1922. In 1926 a concrete stage was built and the hillside was covered in concrete and steel to provide permanent seating for nearly 18,000 people. A series of band shells designed by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) were placed on stage in 1927 and 1928; the current structure, a 100ft white quarter-sphere designed by Allied Architects, was finalized in 1929. To compensate for acoustical changes and for ambient noise from the city and nearby Hollywood Freeway, a sound system was installed in 1945; the shell was acoustically modified by architect Frank Gehry in 1970 and 1980. Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Igor Stravinsky, Jascha Heifetz and Luciano Pavarotti have all performed here, among many, many others.