Playing to the gallery - J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California

The Getty is influenced by history and topography, but is (potentially) one of the finest museums in the world.

The galleries of the museum are the principal public indoor spaces of the Center; they are the goal of the pilgrimage from the continuous hum of the Santa Monica Freeway to the great belvedere on the plateau of the hill. Their layout follows the much admired plan of the top floor of the Uffizi in Florence; the armature being a primary circulation which always makes contact with the outside world and which links a sequence of independent galleries. Exhibition areas can be bypassed and there is never a need to retrace one's steps. At the Uffizi the U-shaped glazed route focuses on the Piazzale degli Uffizi between the two wings of the building; at the Getty it is the plain of Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean which hold the eye. What matters in both instances is that the sequence of viewing need not be prescribed and one's position within the museum is frequently and readily verified.

It is therefore a great pity that the treatment of the individual galleries shows a loss of nerve on the part of the Trustees. The shells which Richard Meier has provided are entirely appropriate and versatile; it is the surface treatment, the essential immediate background to the works of art, trying to imitate the appearance of certain galleries of the past which raises grave doubts. The most cursory glance at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century galleries as depicted on contemporary pictures would have shown that paintings were hung so densely that very little wall was visible. Each period sees works of art in new and different ways. It is therefore regrettable that the Trustees asked Thierry Despont, a New York interior decorator, to become a consultant on the wall finishes of the upper floor picture galleries at a late stage in the design process. What we now have in the painting galleries is a white daylit upper half contrasting uncomfortably with a usually sombre lower half frequently covered in fabric (p47). All of Richard Meier's capacity to create Baroquelike luminous spaces has been put aside.

Despontism

Despont has also been almost entirely responsible for the installation of the galleries on the lower floor devoted to the decorative arts. Here the public wanders past furniture placed in an apparently historical stage set (p47). Neither the furniture as a work of art nor the background as a historical imitation gains from the juxtaposition. The most important conjunction has been forgotten: artistic works of highest quality demand a setting of corresponding quality. The Getty could so easily have been in the forefront of the difficult task of displaying objects of use from the past. It has now lost that opportunity, seemingly failing to remember that what we think of as someone's past was never anyone's present.

Carlo Scarpa when designing the Canova plaster cast galleries at Possagno (November 1996) was advised that only a dark coloured background would be correct for the white plaster sculptures. Scarpa was uneasy with such a solution. What finally emerged was a magically lit white interior which, through light and texture, revealed the delicate handling of Canova's surfaces and forms. This is not to suggest that the galleries of the Getty should have been white, but only to indicate that the tonalities of the whole room need to be considered. There are enough marvellous examples of Italian palazzi, for instance, with their slightly rose-tinted raw plaster, for one to know that it is not necessary to select lugubrious tones in order to display old master paintings successfully. It is the work of art and the space which make an impression on the visitor and which demand a synergy for the object on view to communicate.

Getty and Gug

Comparisons between the Getty and the Guggenheim in Bilbao are inevitable and relevant. Their similarities are as significant as their differences. Both museums adopt the strategy of creating different kinds of space: one, architecturally subdued for the display of objects, the other exuberant, to be admired in its own right. The second spatial category is the space for public circulation. The strategy can be seen in a great many museums of the recent past and has already been discussed in these pages.(1) Although there is no indication from the outside, at the Bilbao Guggenheim the major display area consists of six simple rectangular galleries on two floors, cunningly top-lit (AR December 1997, p35). The architecturally vibrant spaces exist in the atrium and its associated routes as well as externally. At the Getty, it is the spaces which guide movement and which relate enclosed volumes to the external world which immediately absorb our attention.

The differences between these two recent masterpieces are equally instructive and reflect on the way we think about building. The Guggenheim is a striking special object wonderfully situated by the river with a backdrop of a green hill, its shimmering metal demanding attention. The Getty Center is part of a new town which includes a museum; a complex hill town with its public plaza, belvederes and gardens which can absorb thousands and which is a fitting setting for a day of urbane pleasures in a city not so far known for its public spaces. It is architecture as place making.