The Getty Center buildings and gardens cover 24 acres and require 32 full-time gardeners to keep them looking beautiful. Beside the usual landscaping, trees, blooming flowers and the like, the Getty Center also includes a special garden that's almost as much a work of art as it is a garden in the traditional sense.
See Them Now: Stroll on over to our Getty Gardens Photo Tour.
Getty Museum Landscape Gardens
The formal landscaping, designed by Laurie Olin, complements and enhances Meier's design, providing a balance between man-made and the natural. Its color scheme is primarily lavender and white, perhaps not coincidentally the colors of the museum's prized painting, Van Gogh's Irises. The purple-flowering jacaranda trees in the small courtyard in front of the auditorium, are especially pretty when they bloom in June.
The Getty Center site sits over 800 feet above the surrounding city, providing panoramic views. To the east are city landscapes, to the south, the cactus garden's architectural shapes and stark silhouettes punctuate the city views of the South Bay the Palos Verdes peninsula. To the west is the Pacific Ocean, which needs little adornment. At the north promontory, the landscaping blends into the hillside surroundings and the resident herd of mule deer sometimes appear if visitors are quiet enough.
Getty Museum Central Garden
The piece de resistance of the Getty Museum's gardens is the 134,000 square foot Central Garden, conceived by artist Robert Irwin who calls it "a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art."
Four, full-time gardeners work year round to tend over 300 plants in Irwin's ever-changing creation. The garden's design is precise in every detail. Rocks are placed to change water's sound as you walk down the zigzagging path. Colors blend so subtly that red and orange transform into white and pink within a few steps, leaving no memory of the transition.
Touring the Getty Museum Gardens
Docents lead daily tours of the gardens.
If you want to tour on your own, pick up the Architecture and Gardens brochure. The suggested route for a self-guided tour of the Central Garden starts to the right as you approach the main building, along its side, down the zigzag path to the Central Garden and up the hill toward the West Pavilion.
More: Getty Museum Visitor Guide | Architecture | Collection
