The Getty Museum

We finally went! Dan took Friday off for his birthday and we decided to head up to the Getty Museum for the day.

Getty from the gardens.

What an amazing place. The architecture is breathtaking and is easily the best part of the entire trip. From my photographer's point of view, this place is the best! I probably snapped a million pictures of the architecture while we were there. The garden is also an experience on it's own.

Textures.

Getty's contrast with the sky.

The whole place was thought out extensively and built on two intersecting axis of Los Angeles. The walls and ground are all in a grid and cut to size in multiples of three. The masonry is very original. I don't remember the type of stone that was used, but it is from Italy and is very old. The way they cut it was done so in a way that gave each piece an individual look and feel. The rock was so old that you could often seen fossils of leaves and supposedly fish (I couldn't find any).

The architect was Richard Meier, who is well known for his love of the colour white. He believes that white embodies all colours. The funny, and perhaps ironic, thing is that one of the stipulations of designing the Getty Center was that it could not be white. Well, of course Richard Meier found away around this, by making the buildings off-white.

Close enough, right?

He did something very clever with the shades of colour when designing the center. There are areas for guests and areas for the foundation and art preservation. He used solid whites to draw people to certain areas. For instance, on the main entrance to the museum he outlined it with white, same as the tram station. Whereas, for the entrances of privates areas he did not use white. I love it.

The exhibits were interesting as well. Of course my favourite was the medieval scriptures they have. The fact that these books were handwritten and the artwork painted with expensive colours is pure craziness. If you understand the colour thing, you must be a historian!

Los Angeles

We wandered around the grounds and took both the garden tour and architectural tour, both of which I recommend. We enjoyed the views of LA and even got a good lunch. They had vegan Korean noodle salad, yes please!

The flowers naturally enhance the architecture. 

Anyway, if you live or are ever in the Los Angeles area, I highly recommend going to the Getty Center, not to be confused with the Getty Villa. We'll save that for another time. :)