Getty Center is an incredible complex of museum buildings, research institute, library and amazing gardens. It is situated in Los Angeles on the top of Santa Monica hills.
Since we were visiting this place for the first time, we planned it well in advance - printed out our directions from mapquest.com. We followed the directions precisely and ended up on the top of the Getty Center hill in the middle of residential area. It was a web of small narrow streets in front of the closed center doors. Actually, it was the only one occasion when mapquest.com misled us. We made a crazy U-turn, took 405 north and finally got to the Getty Center exit sign.

Finally we made it to the Center’s parking lot and we started getting acquainted with this extraordinary place. The air - cushioned cable car takes you up to the hill. The road is surrounded with blooming myrtle and California pepper trees and goes up and up. If you wish, you can walk up the hill - it takes about 15 minutes..

Cable car took us to the Arrival Plaza passing by the North Terrace. The buildings of the Center are modernistic, they combine the stone and glass, air and water - breath-taking view. There are a lot of terraces and balconies with magnificent views of Los Angeles, as well as ramps and galleries, which set those views in a kind of frames and serve as bridges between the buildings.

The design of the Center was created by architect Richard Meier. He placed all buildings into unusual grid of circles and squares, so that if you choose a line between two squares on the tiled floor, you can walk along it exactly from north to south or from east to west with not a slight degree of deviation; museum towers and utility buildings are inscribed in circles. All buildings have travertine finishing. Travertine was brought from Bagni di Tivoli, Italy. Ancient Romans used stone from these quarries to build Coliseum, Trevi Fountain and Saint Peter’s Cathedral colonnade. One can find a lot of small cozy squares with ponds, fountainettes and even waterfalls, the environment of southern Italy, a little bit modernistic, though.

Museum galleries are divided between the four pavilions - Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western, which contain paintings, sculpture, arts and crafts, manuscripts and photography. Paintings are lighted by a natural light, which is controlled by computer-connected blinds. This is pretty unusual since you can see paintings exactly under the same light artists could see them.

And, finally, Getty Center gardens, especially Central Garden. This garden was referred as a “sculpture in the form of garden close to real art”. It was created by Robert Irwin. The trail leading to the garden is a zigzag running through the tender velvety lawn. The trail goes over the same small streamlet several times. The sound of the streamlet is different on each of several bridges. The streamlet’s bed is covered with boulders from Sierra. The trail ends up in the opening with fantastic wrought-iron pavilions covered with bougainvillea. In the lower part of the Central Garden the streamlet is running down the stone wall to the mirror-like pool with azalea flower labyrinth. There are narrow terraces with thematical gardens coming up from the pool. You will be amazed by the play of light and shadow, mystical specs of light on the walls reflected from the water, colorful flower spots and tender and tart scent of herbs.

It is impossible to see all Center’s wonders in one day and of course it would take a lot of time to fully enjoy also its relaxing atmosphere of numerous cafes and magnificent views from terraces and galleries. This is a place where you want to come back time and again.

Los Angeles, July, 2002