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Re: Just curious....you were less than complimentary of the Getty Center...

Posted by Bambi B (A) on October 9, 2006 at 15:31:28

In Reply to: Just curious....you were less than complimentary of the Getty Center... posted by TWB on October 9, 2006 at 10:37:02:

TWB,

I probably sound more negative about the Getty Center than it deserves. Individually, Meier is adept and makes neat solutions, but, as an ensemble I've thought the Getty was a completely souless collection of discarded office building designs. I knew the landscape architect for the Malibu Getty "The Villa" and this friend had done the first lacdscape designs for the Brentwood Getty. He talked of Meier as a rigid, egotistical maniac living in a universe of his own design- alone. I heard Meier once went through the cafeteria and creamed at emplyees, shouting that the chairs were not the distance away from the tables he had specified. The Getty Center is not terrible, but it is one of the greatest missed opportunity of the the entire 20th Century to do something amazing. The art collection is grade B- and they had $1 Billion so in context it seems a comparative failure. I wished the Getty had been done by Barragan- who probably would have introduced a poetic serenity and cohesion instead of coliding corporate offices. It feels like an expensive medical clinic and i always expect someone is going to tell me to "open wide".

Likewise Disney Hall has turned into another missed opportunity as it produced a hall of spotty functionality- I find the sound just terrible, and though I'm not terribly tall- 6'2", I sit in those expensive seats ($64 each for a piano recital and $15 parking) with my arms pulled in and my kness pressed against the seat in front. I'm all for exciting and interesting architecture, but Gehry makes his art musuems about his art with the real art as an afterthought that gets fit in later. Apparently the concert halls are all about his art too. I've been to a number of concerts at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) the Dismal Hall is supposed to be moldelled after and I can tell you Gehry must've spent all that time in the wrong hall- the two places have nothing in common. It's self-conscious and in my view, Gehry's reputation for being so sypmathetic to artists is akin to referring to George Bush as the Prince of Peace.

As an aside, I might mention I used to get in trouble when I had a radio programme for calling it "Dismal Hall". I also used to call the "Dorothy Chandler Pavilion" the "Dorky Chandalier". If you've been there you'll know what this refers to. In Los Angeles, no one is allowed to criticize the Disney or Getty on any level- vorboten in order to maintain civic pride.

There have been many architects I've admired in the 20th Centurry, but most of my heroes were working at the turn of the 19th to 20th Century: Voysey, Gaudi, Lutyens, Olbrich, FL Wright, CR Makintosh, Greene and Greene- I think the James House in Carmel Highlands is one of the greatest houses anywhere-, and then on to Corbusier- yes there is poetry in Corbu- Kahn, Venturi, Hollein, Barragan and so on. I knew Hadid, Liebskind, and Koolhaus too from school days but esp with Hadid who is an arrogant brat,a m not too excited with any of their work. The new Denver art mauseum by Liebskind is another example of 'desparate' architecture.

My particular favourite among contemporary architects is Charles Moore, who I think had the most integrated concepts and forms- and was endlessly inventive. He wrote extensively and intelligently and was a truly humane, socially conscious artist. I worked on a house with Moore in Singapore and he was one of the three or four smartest people I've ever spent time with- creative to the nth degree and friendly and accessible.

Cheers,

Bambi B

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