A Garden Aspiring to be Art

By Robert Haywood  |  Photography courtesy of The Getty Center

When I was a Getty Scholar at the Getty Center in 2004–5, I looked out every day at the spectacular garden designed by artist Robert Irwin and even had a chance to go on a tour of the garden with Irwin himself. It is surely among the most stunning landscape projects in the United States.

The garden is part of the Getty Center, which includes the Getty Museum that houses some of the finest paintings, sculpture and photography in the world. Designed by Richard Meier, the Getty Center, with its panoramic views and beige travertine surfaces that reflect the bright California sun, is an architectural feat.

When architect Richard Meier first saw artist Robert Irwin’s garden proposal he protested. Meier did not see Irwin’s design as complementing his architectural design. Fortunately, Irwin insisted on his independence as an artist and pursued the garden design as he envisioned it. An environmental sculptor (as opposed to a landscape architect), Irwin conceived the garden as “a sculpture in the form of a garden aspiring to be art.” The garden, both organic and highly structured, adds a whole additional experience to Meier’s five interconnected two-story pavilions made of 16,000 tons of travertine quarried from Italy.

Visitors to the garden walk down a zigzag pattern on a path alongside large boulders appearing to tumble down a slope. Streams flow beside the path and under stone bridges. Irwin conceived the stream, selection of flowers and leafy plants so that the visitor would experience a feast of the senses—the colors, smells, sounds and textures are all part of the experience. The end of the slope opens onto a plaza-like space with seating areas and 15-foot metal umbrellas of overflowing bougainvillea. When you lean over a carnelian granite wall, you see and hear 20 feet of plunging water pour into a “bowl garden” with an azalea maze in the center.

For Annapolitans, Los Angeles is on the other side of the country, but, if for no other reason, it is worth a special visit to experience the Getty Center and Irwin’s garden.

RESOURCES:

The Getty Center, getty.edu/visit/center/

To learn more about the Getty Garden, see Lawrence Weschler,
Robert Irwin Getty Garden (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Annapolis Home Magazine
Vol. 7, No. 6 2016