Building the Getty

One of America's most eminent architects tells us what it was like to undertake the architectural commission of the century: the building of the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Writing with wit and passion and in engrossing detail, Richard Meier takes us behind the scenes of the thirteen-year-long, one-billion-dollar project. Meier tells us how he was selected from more than thirty architects, after a lengthy and involved series of interviews, to design the cultural campus on the spectacular 110-acre site overlooking the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The Getty was a new cultural institution, and Meier worked with the program directors to design the buildings that would serve them best. In the beginning, neither he nor the Getty had any idea of the complications in store for them. The sheer scale and complexity of the project, and the number of people involved in every decision, continued to mean constant revisions. As construction moved ahead, Meier lived on the site, yet commuted to his New York office to manage ongoing European projects, while in his new office in Los Angeles, the population of architects handling the Getty grew to more than a hundred. Although the Center's design had been agreed on, much negotiation lay ahead before questions of material, color, and landscaping were at last settled. Finally, in 1996, almost half of the Center was ready to be occupied, and Meier could see that the work - carried out by the many architects, engineers, technicians, craftsmen, and builders for twelve years - was well on its way to being completed.