Customer Reviews

Richard Meier (English and Italian Edition)

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A question everyone must ask when they first visit the Getty Museum is, "How did anyone ever build this enormous, complicated, graceful complex of buildings?" In The Getty Center by Michael Brawne, the author takes you to the earliest stages of the project with breathtaking photography and detailed text. The photography from beginning to end allows you to feel that you can take part of the" Getty Experience" home with you. I bought this book for my daughter when I was at the Museum gift shop and got home feeling sorry I didn't have my own copy, so this is my second purchase of this beautiful book

Despite the succinctness of the book, I knew all I needed to know about the Getty Centre which costed a whopping US$1 billion to build. Getty Centre is to the other extreme of the Bilbao Museum by Gehry. The latter one is both an architecture building & a sculpture as a whole but the former offering is a Modern building in the best traditions of Le Corbusier, Philip Johnson, or even Miles van de Rohe. I'm disappointed to read that Richard Meier didn't get the chance to realise his total vision upon the project & therefore, the integrity of his design is ultimately compromised. 2 of the incidents worth mentioning are the engagement of the interior designer, Thierry Despont to provide the colour coordination of the galleries. He's better known as the designers for the rich & famous such as Ralph Lauren & Bill Gates. In this instance, Theirry applied heavy & bold colours to complement the art works & when the art works melted into the scene, the emphasis upon the art works themselves are lost in totality. Secondly, the engagement of the landscape artist, Robert Irwin who introduced the circular garden which broke the link between 2 main buildings of the Getty Centre. It's interesting to read about the material chosen, the travertine, & how it blends nicely with the white metal panels that Richard Meier is well known for; the maximisation of controlled light to highlight the artworks & yet, not harming them in anyway required fine detailing & ingenuity in which Richard Meier & team delivered. The book comprises of many photographs taken from many angles imaginable under different time of the day. Many elevation plans, sectional plans, conceptual plans, model plans, detailing plans, & all you need to know about the Getty Centre. Definitely worth reading for an architecture enthusiast.

After visiting THE Getty Center, I've become a huge fan of Meiers' work. Although most of his work in the past seems untouchable to me, this project has a clean but warm inviting feeling around every corner. The photographs in the book are superb and layout the book with remarkable light, clarity and stunning imagery. The photographer John Linden is a true master of the camera. His work carries the book. Not a bad read either, but who reads books on architecture? This book and the project itself pure eye candy. Buy it.

I have purchased several books about Getty Center for my design research. Overall design of the architecture is, with no doubt, a masterpiece. However, the pictures in this book are dead, out of context, no night pictures, no interior pictures, with no scale senses...I mainly blame the photographer/editors for their poor selection of their pictures.

The pictures are in high quality, but edited to remove the real sense of the presence. Not even showing the entire presence of the building that you can find even from google Satellite picture.

I still recommend anyone to visit LA, visit Getty center and your experience or any picture you take there will be 5-10 times better than what you see in this book.

This should just sit on your coffee table to flaunt your architectural taste, but not for the architects.

Just a spectacular building, the perfect building for this breathtaking site. This book is well conceived and the images just pop off the page. This building was a long time coming, but it was well worth the wait. I am a huge fan of Meier, his work is so light and inviting. I love how the L.A. sunlight plays off the tavertine, it just glows. Of all the great buildings Meier has designed this will be the one for which he is remembered and I'm sure he is fine with that fact. Fine book on a fantastic building, oh and not a shabby art collection either.