Getty Center
- Architect
- Richard Meier
- Year
- 1997
- Style
- Contemporary Modern
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
The Getty Center opened December 16, 1997, a $1.3 billion hilltop campus in Brentwood designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier for the J. Paul Getty Trust. Visitors reach the museum from a parking garage at the base of the hill via a three-car, cable-pulled hovertrain, arriving atop a ridge with sweeping views over Los Angeles. It now draws 1.8 million visitors a year to see pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts, including Van Gogh's Irises.
the building
The Central Garden. Rather than leave the museum's outdoor space to the architecture alone, the Getty commissioned artist Robert Irwin to design the large Central Garden, threading plantings and water down the hillside as a living artwork distinct from Meier's building.
Arriving by hovertrain. Because the campus sits atop a hill separate from public parking, visitors ride a cable-pulled, three-car hovertrain up from the garage below — an unusual arrival sequence built into the site plan from the start.
the style
Contemporary Modern (c. 1990–present): Today's default architecture: floor-to-ceiling glass, crisp panel facades, bold cantilevers, and mixed materials.
More on Contemporary Modernthe architect
Richard Meier, a Pritzker Prize winner, designed the Getty Center as one of his signature commissions, bringing his characteristic white-paneled modernist massing to a hilltop site overlooking the city.
nearby
- Zack House
- Sturges House
- Strathmore Apartments
- Sheats Apartments
- Streetcar Depot, West Los Angeles
- Regency Village Theatre