A few days ago, I did something that I've wanted to do for ever-so-long: visit the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Ooh, the Getty Center: Temple of Modernism. Ode to Light. Tabernacle of Beauty. Perched on the edge of a plush, sinuous mountain, the Center casts a cool gaze over the city of angels, seemingly impervious to smog and exhaust fumes. Driving on the 405, I had gazed longingly at it, but had never had the chance to stop.
Well: it isn't as if I drive by it often - after all, I do live nearly 400 miles away.
But last week, at long last, I stepped into the gleaming white tram at the base of the mountain, and stepped out into a dazzling, shimmery, light-spangled daydream.
The Center is actually something of a campus, made up of multiple buildings, all connected by a vast "courtyard" of sorts in the middle. In theory, the buildings house a stunning collection of art, but I can't verify that, because I scarcely spent any time inside. I just kept walking around the buildings, eyes big as pizza pies, taking in the sumptuous curves and soaring archways and squares in grids repeated over and over.
It was all light + glass + thick-veined Italian travertine.
Look:
And:
See? Isn't it divine? Don't you just want to... hug it? Or lay on your back on the floor and stare up at the shapes + shadows for hours and hours?
Oh, if only.
In lieu of all that, there's learning about it. Here are few facts that I found fascinating (culled from the
friendly tour guide on the Architecture tour - any mistakes are
entirely the fault of my memory):
+ The squares that appear everywhere are based on a 30x30 grid, which architect Richard Meier used as one of his recurring motifs in the project. Sometimes the squares are multiples of 30x30; sometimes, they're a division.
Can I just say that it makes me warm + tingly when artists and architects use a particular numerical scheme throughout their work? Speak numbers to me, baby.
+ Knowing how much Meier loved bright white, the City of Los Angeles forbade the use of bright white on the bulk of the buildings. Instead, he used a creamy tone that matches the travertine. Over and over, the design committee urged him to incorporate bold pops of color, but he would not.
Good. Man.
Instead, noting the lavender that bloomed on the mountainside and the purplish cast of the sky on summer evenings, he incorporated lavender plants and trees with purple flowers (whose name escapes me) to create harmony between the hardscape and the environment.
Can I interject here how much I adore white + neutral tones, and how seriously thrilled I am that the Center doesn't look like a giant Legos set of taxicab yellow + lipstick red and indigo blue, and how imagining the buildings in those colors makes me shudder?
Deep breath.
+ Another recurring motif Meier used was passageways and long, narrow corridors. His inspiration was the naturally-formed channels that run across the ridges of the mountains, which you can clearly see from the deck of the building, and the strips of freeway that cut into the mountains along those same parallel lines, creating a gorgeous sense of continuity.
+ Meier was all about framing views. From every vantage point on the property, the space between each building creates a magnificent frame that showcases the mountains, the valley, the city... spectacular.
It's like white space in design, or the space between notes in music - just as important as the design itself or the musical notes - or the building, in this case - is the space around it.
I'm smitten. Does it show?
I'm going to have to go back.
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More Getty Center Links:
+ A blog that collects interesting Getty-related links.
+ A group of LA-based photographers spent an evening photographing the Getty, and what they captured makes me want to toss my camera away and cry. Simply stunning.
+ From the New York Times, a story about a photographer-scientist-detective who works in the Getty Conservation Institute to decode the information in old photos. Fabulous read.
+ Richard Meier's official website
+ Check out some of these photos of Meier's various projects.
Next post: a little bit about other LA-based inspiration.