Los Angeles highlight
The Getty Center
Richard Meier's hilltop museum campus in Brentwood, open since December 1997, with Robert Irwin's ever-changing Central Garden and free admission.
The Getty Center opened to the public in December 1997 on a Brentwood hilltop in the Sepulveda Pass, after the Getty purchased the site in 1982, selected Richard Meier as architect in 1984, and began construction in 1989. The campus is known for its sky-lit galleries, its travertine-clad modernist architecture and its views over the city to the ocean.
At the heart of the campus is the 134,000-square-foot Central Garden created by California artist Robert Irwin. A walkway crosses a stream and descends to a plaza where bougainvillea climbs through umbrella-like trellises; the stream cascades over a stone waterfall into a pool holding a maze of azaleas. More than 500 varieties of plants are used, and Irwin's line “Always changing, never twice the same” is carved into a stepping stone. Admission is free with a timed-entry reservation; there is a fee for parking.
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