Getty genesis - planning the architectural design of the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 1998 by Ivor Richards

'This was my first commission in California, and like so many easterners and Europeans before me, I was dazzled by the clarity of light and the extraordinary climate in Los Angeles ... Two years after starting work on the Getty, I completed an oceanfront house in Malibu [the Ackerberg House]. That project gave me an opportunity to experiment, on a small scale, with the mingling of interior and exterior spaces, and with the movement of people through a succession of indoor and outdoor rooms. At the Getty, galleries, offices, and the auditorium all lead out into courtyards and terraces, and the alternation of ceiling and sky is a crucial element of the design. I had even hoped to have one level of the cafe left unwalled ...'(6)

These extracts from Meier's personal reflections on his California design leave some impression of his intentions, They form a preface to what James Stirling once described as 'the project of the century'.

1 In April 1984, after a series of competitive interviews and visits to the architects' projects, a shortlist of three finalists for the design of the Getty Center was selected. These were Fumihiko Maki from Japan, Richard Meier from the US, and James Stirling & Michael Wilford from the UK.

2 See The Getty Center: Design Process, Williams, Lacy, Rountree and Meier, the J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 1991, for accounts of the selection process and the design of the final projects. See Making Architecture: The Getty Center, Williams, Huxtable, Rountree and Meier, the J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 1997, for further accounts of the project and programme development, the construction process and description of the finished buildings of the complex.

3 Meier explains the evolution of the Getty museum/gallery type as being based on a unit of scale derived from the Frick Collection, New York, and on the sectional principle of Soane's Dulwich gallery, in his own notes, Building the Getty, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1997.

4 See 'Interactive Languages', The Architectural Review April 1993, pp22-37 for a discussion of four Meier projects in historic European city contexts, including Ulm Stadthaus and the Barcelona Museum. See also, 'Ulm Stadthaus', The Architectural Review, June 1995, for a parallel detail review of Meier's design method.

5 See Hadrian's Villa and its Legacy, MacDonald Pinto, Yale University Press 1995, pp26-33 and pp79-94 for a historical analysis of the Tivoli site and its architecture, and pp246-259 for 'Piranesi and Archaeology' - a review of the Piranesian plan of the Villa; see also p324 'After 1800' which refers to Kahn and his studies of the Villa and his project for the Salk Institute; p325 'Pavilioned Landscapes', refers to Thomas Jefferson and his designs for Monticello.

See also 'A Citadel for Los Angeles and an Alhambra for the Arts' by Kurt W. Forster, o u November 1992 Special Issue: 'Richard Meier The Getty Center', pp6-15. In this piece, Forster, formerly director of the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities from 1984 to 1992, refers to Kahn and the Salk, the Alhambra at Granada, and the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola (1559), among others - as projects that 'invite comparison' with 'Meier's vast Getty Center'.