December 1997 - The Getty Center Opens
On December 16, 1997, the $1.3 billion Getty Center museum opened on the hills above Brentwood, establishing itself as a bold new addition to Los Angeles' art landscape.
When the private art collection of the late oil magnate J. Paul Getty began to outgrow the original 1974 Italian Villa-style Getty Museum, in the early 1980s, the Getty Trust sought a new, publicly-accessible home in a 24-acre campus to be built on a 110-acre plot of land in the Santa Monica Mountains above Brentwood near the 405 Freeway.
Architect Richard Meier was commissioned in 1984 to design a modernist facility on a hilltop with sweeping, panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean in the west to Catalina Island in the south to the San Gabriel Mountains in the east. His final product, which broke ground in 1989, features five main gallery pavilions, most of them clad in 1.2 million square feet of imported Italian travertine stone. Glass walls and skylights emphasize the use of natural light in the Getty Center buildings. A 134,000 square-foot central garden, designed by artist Robert Irwin, is one of the most popular outdoor spaces on the campus.
A cable-pulled tram transports visitors from the seven-story, partially-underground parking garage at street level to the museum campus some 900 feet above. The Getty Center attracts 1.3 million visitors annually to see paintings like Vincent Van Gough's "Irises," as well as regularly-changing exhibitions throughout the year.
The campus also houses the offices for the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute.
