Cathedral, newest landmark, gets mixed marks. (Inside the Books--Banking & Finance Special Report).

Love it or hate it, it's here for the next four or five centuries.

The towering Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels opens its 30-foot-high bronze doors on Sept. 3 after hundreds of construction workers have spent five years hammering away.

The imposing concrete-clad cathedral designed by Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo looms over downtown Los Angeles in a sparse, modem style with high sand-colored concrete walls, alabaster windows and a large plaza. And it's built to last.

So far, the principal view of the nearly $200 million cathedral has been from the Hollywood (101) Freeway, as drivers inch by during rush-hour traffic. From this vantage point, it looks either like a forbidding fortress waiting to be conquered or a stark edifice whose beauty changes with the setting sun.

So far, the buzz among local architects has been mixed at best. Several frown on the cathedral's forbidding look -- as well as having church-goers entering from the side toward the altar rather than from the traditional center.

A few give points for Moneo's obvious effort to be different.

Here are some selected comments:

Herb Nadel

Chief Executive and President

Nadel Architects Inc., Los Angeles 

THE building is a very memorable, powerful architectural statement. But from my perspective it is not a Southern Californian piece of architecture.

It seems to be almost forbidding when you look at it. When I see the cathedrals of Europe, they seem to be more friendly. The (Los Angeles) cathedral has a massive amount of concrete, so the building has a fortress-like appearance.

While it is a significant piece of architecture, I don't feel it is something that is engaging or alluring to me as a pedestrian. It is nevertheless memorable.

Jon Jerde 

Chairman

Jerde Partnership International, Venice

IT is kind of L.A.-like in the sense it is a background building but with such a scale that it can't lose itself.

Unlike cathedrals everywhere else that are huge showstoppers, this is very quiet and very subtle. When you look at it for a length of time, it is very intriguing as the light and shadows play on it.

It is a funny church. Instead of entering through the nave end, which is traditional, you enter from the altar end.

You have these gigantic windows of alabaster that illuminate the whole thing, which is like being in a bottle of gas where everything is softly illuminated.

What I don't like are the gazillion light fixtures that look like they come from the moon. They must have been referenced back to Gabriel's trumpets. There are thousands of them. The cathedral could have certainly been lit in a different way.

I think it is going to be a tremendous building that is one of those "gee whiz, look at me" buildings we are going to live with for centuries and it will be comfortable.

Aleks Istanbullu

Principal

Aleks Istanbullu Architects, Santa Monica 

IT feels like the whole thing is backwards. There was a deliberate intent there to do that, and I am kind of wondering why they wanted to turn this cathedral inside out.

When you go to a cathedral in Europe, you have a public plaza, you enter from the center point of the building and the altar is at the end of the sanctuary.

Here you enter off to the side of the cathedral's building instead of the center. Once you enter, you go down this long, very dark tunnel and then come into this great sanctuary where the altar is turned around.

Inside there is nothing grand about it. The giant windows look like factory windows that face Temple Street and the freeway. I thought inside I was going to experience all this wonderful light from the windows. But instead I saw this tan, shiny tile on the floor, which looks slippery and chintzy. You look up and see these light fixtures that hang real low and look like they are done in a 1950s style.

I don't think anyone is going to say that this is a wonderful spiritual space. The only positive thing I can say about it is that the cathedral is in downtown Los Angeles.

Christopher C. Martin

Architect and Chief Executive

AC Martin Partners Inc., Los Angeles.

I think it is a dramatic style that recalls the character of California's architecture. The sand-colored concrete is some of the most beautiful concrete work I have seen.

The one characteristic I find most attractive is its siting. It did become the cathedral on the hill, in many regards, seen by thousands of people who go by.

A lot of cathedrals in the old days were fortresses. They were places of solitude where you separate yourselves from the outside world. I see that in this. I also see a recall of the California missions in the arcade with its mission bells that face the freeway.

Unfortunately I don't think the conference center is up to what it should be. It doesn't have the grandeur of the cathedral.

And I am hesitating on the color of the concrete. Maybe it should have been a little lighter.

Sarah Graham

Partner

Angelil/Graham Architecture, Los Angeles

Richard Landry

THE exterior is quite fortress-like, which may or may not be appropriate for the Catholic church right now. In a large scale model I saw of the interior it looked poetic. I think Moneo is a good architect. But the thought of a fortress keeps coming to mind when I see it on the skyline. They have done things well, but there is also a lot of kitsch, like the angels on the plaza's sound-proof glass facing the freeway. My perception is that some things were done well. Then there is this overlay that a committee was in action making the decision and not the top design people.

Owner and Principal

Landry Design Group, Los Angeles

PART of me likes it and part of me feels it might take time to get used to it. Most laymen don't understand it. It is not their image of what a cathedral should be. Sometimes great architecture comes from something that is not expected. Once they get to experience the space, people will warm up to it a little more.

It is the scale of a grand cathedral, but not the detail of a cathedral you would see in Europe. But I think there is a new trend coming where the newer cathedrals will experiment with the modern language of architecture.

The sequence in which you enter the cathedral, starting in the plaza, then walking down a long hall, those sequences detach you from the busy street and give you time to unwind and put your mind in a different frame.