The
Getty’s Own Boner
The Getty Center five and
ten years on (cursory remarks)
Meier should never have been given this commission after his failure in
Atlanta; it should have been obvious the man is an amateur, and a petulant one
at that.
To
the objection that his favorite color was denied him inside and out, it may be
replied that Brentwood was wiser than the Getty Trust in eschewing the
bone-white glare of an exterior which would certainly have stood out like a
sore thumb in your eye, whereas the beige that was chosen is anyway discreet
and not far from the color of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House not
too far away.
Inside,
Thierry Despont’s bad interiors fill broom
closets stuffed with bric-à-brac (how fond we are of Despontism’s
brief global reign, which caused every picture at the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art to be hung with a shadow across its top, and not just in Los
Angeles—now the fashion has shifted to Rem Koolhaas and whatnot).
Whistler still knows what he’s talking about, and the only good thing in
Atlanta is the galleries, which are as wide and spacious and well-lit and
humane as these are not, and that is the point: you go into the Getty’s
ground-level galleries as into dark confessionals from the sunlit glare of
essentially futile plaza constructions, of which they appear an afterthought.
“The
North and East buildings evoke the qualities of light and openness that
characterize both the Bauhaus movement of 1920s Europe and the Los Angeles
buildings of early 20th-century architects Richard Neutra, Frank
Lloyd Wright, and Rudolph Schindler,” says the traitorous or pixilated
brochure.
It
remains to discuss Robert Irwin’s garden. Part of the effect depends on
one’s appreciation of rusted steel, which is used extensively. You zigzag
across a stream filled with rocks under a stand of trees down to a circular
pool islanded by a hedge maze and surrounded by flower gardens. The effect is
not visual like a Japanese garden, but rather experiential. It gives you the
feeling of a walk through the woods, culminating in a symbol that will serve
for a mystery.
It
has been amply commented on, Meier’s failure to incorporate adequate
facilities for the public. Add to this a relentless policy: the restaurants
close early, leaving crowds to bake on the hot plaza. Flowers and water are
seen as precious, even luxuries, under these circumstances.
With
the sun setting, this overcrowded campus (which recalls and in some ways
reflects UCLA’s recent overbuilding campaign) acquires shadows and throws
them on the lawn. It acquires some depth. The six-inch squares of Travertine marble
on the “Arrival Plaza” are each a picture. Nevertheless, the building
seems so foolish that sundown means Blake’s guinea dropped, and in particular
the entrance atrium seen from inside the museum compound is an alarming
evocation of Felix the Cat’s latter-day nemesis Master Cylinder, King
of the Moon.
University
yahoos seem to enjoy this more than anyone, since the effect of tiles and
marble is like a posh bathroom, and are wont to speak of an Acropolis, rather
than a pile of crap. Harold M. Williams, former president and chief executive
officer of the Trust (he has been replaced by a former Chancellor of the
California State University), must have hoped for the best. John Walsh, the
museum’s director emeritus, assembled a Bill Viola retrospective to grace
it.