CARISSA MARSH
A&E Editor
Just 30 minutes from campus, the J. Paul Getty Center offers students breathtaking views, awe-inspiring architecture, meandering gardens and world-class art. Located atop a hill seated in the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking the Los Angeles basin, the Getty is one of the premier art institutions in the nation.
Both for the art-savvy and art-newbies, the Getty Center appeals to a broad range of aesthetics, from ancient to modern. A full visual experience, a day at the museum is the perfect trip for friends, families and couples.
All excursions to the Getty begin with one thing in common: a computer-operated tram ride. Two white trams run throughout the day to carry visitors up the tree-lined grade to the museum and then back down to the street-level parking structure.
Once in the arrival plaza, visitors experience their first taste of art before even setting foot inside a gallery. Towering displays of modern architecture seem to rise up out of the mountaintop location, setting the stage for the rest of the museum, which houses a vast collection of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present.
Completed in 1997, the Center’s signature buildings were designed by renowned architect Richard Meier, who won the prized commission after competing against numerous firms in an international competition. The Getty Center project took Meier nearly 14 years to build, but its history is much older.
The Center developed out of J. Paul Getty’s love for art. An avid art and antiquities collector, Getty’s wealth allowed him to maintain a personal museum at his home, which today is the Getty Villa in Malibu. When he died in 1976, Getty left his fortune to art and education, in other words, to his museums.
A trust was established to manage his will, and in 1983 the J. Paul Getty Trust purchased about 750 acres in the Santa Monica mountains in order to create the Center, which includes five structures housing multiple galleries as well as a building for educational purposes. The Center’s buildings and gardens sit on 24 acres.
The complex’s modern design utilizes construction materials such as concrete and steel as well as ancient travertine stone, creating a look that embraces both the past and present.
The cleft-cut travertine is a common ingredient used throughout the center — a rough and textured version literally hangs on the façade of the buildings, while the same stone on the walkways is smooth. The heavy stone is from a quarry just outside of Rome, which happens to be the same quarry Romans used to build the Coliseum.
Getty Docent Mary Thanos, who leads both the architecture and garden tours, said Meier probably decided to use travertine because, “it’s natural, it’s permanent and it’s very ancient looking.”
Because the stone was quarried from an ancient source, watchful visitors can find fossilized leaves, coral, feathers and branches within the travertine.
Overall, the buildings have a natural look. Meier wanted to use white exclusively for the buildings, but due to design conflicts he ultimately chose aluminum panels in “Meier brown,” which has a dull finish. Still, he managed to sneak in some bright white in the staircases and entrance canopies.
Though the numerous buildings were placed according to mountain ridges, the center is precisely laid out on an architectural grid and the controlled design features geometric shapes. The travertine and aluminum panels are all 30 by 30 inches, and visitors will find themselves seeing lines everywhere: in the trees, hedges, walkways, fountains and pools.
Another visual aspect of the center is its landscaping and gardens.
“You can’t discuss architecture without discussing the landscaping because it is what was used to fill in the gaps,” Thanos explained. She also said the museum’s designers included plenty of outside cafes and patio furniture to encourage visitors to enjoy the outdoors.
Meier mostly used green grass and trees to inject color into his overall design.
“The north end, being the cool end, was developed with a color scheme of blues and greens,” unlike the south end, home to a cactus garden befitting its warmer climate, Thanos said.
While there are no original plants at the Getty, landscapers planted lush green grass, various species of sycamore, pine and oak trees, and even a palm court featuring palm trees from the South Pacific to line walkways and create intimate places to sit and find shade.
While the gardens Meier interspersed throughout his design make the Getty more inviting, it is the Central Garden that draws crowds of flower and plant lovers. Robert Irwin, an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor, designed the garden.
In contrast to Meier’s design, Irwin’s garden has a more free-form quality.
“He designed the garden as a work of art, a sculpture,” Thanos said.
A rushing natural ravine flows through a tree-lined pathway, leading visitors past a myriad of plants, chosen just as carefully as a painter’s pigments.
At the base of the garden path stand six steel bowers planted with bougainvillaea that spills out over the sides. The ravine flows over a stone waterfall into a circular pool of azaleas, arranged in a labyrinth, or maze-like, design.
Specialty gardens surround the pool, showcasing a wide spectrum of beautifully colored and fragrant flowers.
The garden offers visitors a respite from the galleries. And while it is a piece of art, it is ever evolving as the seasons change and as plants are trimmed or added to the garden.
Besides the architecture and gardens, the Getty offers expansive panoramic views of the city.
“Meier tried to strike a balance between the buildings and the views,” Thanos said. “If you’re a nature lover or you want to see L.A. from high up, you have plenty of opportunities in all directions.”
Of course the main reason people visit the Getty each year is for the art housed within the center’s walls.
“Going to a museum and seeing the artwork face-to-face is a very different experience than the classroom,” said Peter Tokofsky, Getty education specialist for academic programs. “There’s a real immediate value to looking at art first-hand. There’s so much more life to the artwork.”
The Getty features five pavilions and the first four contain the museum’s collections, displayed chronologically. Located around the central courtyard, the pavilions showcase antiquities, illuminated manuscripts, drawings, European sculpture and decorative art, photographs and paintings. The exhibition pavilion is dedicated to special, continually changing exhibits that focus on a particular theme or artist.
Cynthia Colburn, associate professor of art history at Pepperdine, often sends her students to local museums to see original works of art in person.
“A work of art projected in a classroom does not have the same effect as seeing the original work in person,” Colburn said. “It’s difficult to get a real sense of scale and texture, or the style the artist was working in.”
The premiere presentation going on right now is “Rubens and Brueghel: A Working Friendship,” in the Exhibitions Pavilion. The exhibit, which ends Sept. 24, features artistic collaborations by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, who painted more than 20 works together. The exhibit breaks down the pair’s equal partnership process through technical analysis of their work.
In the North Pavilion, visitors can view illuminated manuscripts in “Landscape in the Renaissance,’ an exhibit that highlights importance of landscape themes in art and its place in European painting. The exhibit ends Oct. 15.
Photography admirers will enjoy “Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature,” which showcases the work of an American photographer, known for his detailed and powerful photographs of birds and landscapes. Porter traveled around the country, shooting in black-and-white and color, which was a new technique at the time. Those interested in viewing his intimate portraits of nature better hurry — the exhibit ends Sept. 17.
Tokofsky said the Getty is planning a college night Oct. 19 at 6 p.m. featuring art lectures. Ed Moses will discuss an upcoming exhibition featuring German abstract painter Gerhard Richter, which opens Oct. 6.
“I think what makes great artists the way they are is that they have a different way of looking at things,” said Tokofsky, who also noted that the Center offers a variety of lectures and conferences. “And the Getty is a place where a lot of ideas are presented.”
Whatever the reason for attending the Getty, one thing is clear — it is a local cultural institution not to be missed.
09-07-2006
