A PLACE OVER THE RAINBOW
California VS Kansas
There are places where you feel at home. Places where you feel the true love at first sight, places in which you would like to place your backside on each single brick (and there are several here) to observe them from any possible perspective. The Getty Center, designed by Richard Meier for Jean Paul Getty and his art collection and opened in 1977, is one such places.
When you arrive, you immediately realize that you're in a special place, although it’s impossible to guess to what extent at this point. Cars must be left in a parking lot at the foot of the hill, then you're loaded onto the white Getty Center tram and up you go. Once you pass over the clouds, you feel as though you’re arriving at an island in the sky. The dominant color is still the white which, reflecting the sunlight, makes everything seem delicate, light, and extremely elegant. It is not clear where the entrance is, inside and outside they blur. The main structure consists of an Agora, a square that has an air of community, with tables, refreshment points, and a ground-level fountain that would make any Japanese Zen garden jealous for the quiet that it instills in the viewer. And, all around, are pavilions in which the museum unfolds. 'Ah yes! We are in a museum!’
The works and the rooms pass before me absently, while I observe and photograph stairs, handrails, bathrooms, and windows, completely absorbed by the architecture. Outside, the stairs and parts of the structure literally throw themselves into the void, like ships of the sky about to set sail. I remember my eyes filling with water for no reason and my breath remaining suspended. There’s a fantastic view of the city below. Then, following a series of catwalks, you reach the garden - mocking, enthusiastic, surreal, and precise in every detail.
Overall, this structure has one of the most intricate designs that I have ever visited, yet with its purity of colors and the simplicity and cleanliness of its forms, it becomes transparent, you seem to have understood it, to be able to look at it through. What to say, Meier, other than “thanks”.
