The Getty!

This is an untouched piece of Carrara marble...sure looks like coral

a beautiful element of the Getty Center

colors and textures of the garden

part of the succulent garden

March 14th

The Getty!  What an amazing afternoon:  we started with lunch in the wonderful restaurant on the property.  Billie and I elected to take the architectural and garden tours.  The docent on each of the tours were well-informed and interesting.  I was, if anything, more interested in the structure than the contents of the facility, so I enjoyed learning about the evolution of the project.

I added some images from the exterior walls, and several photos from the garden.  One fascinating fact about the construction was that the stone is Carrara marble quarried in Italy. A special process was developed to cut the stones.  One notices that some of the surfaces are smooth and others have a rough, natural appearance.  The rough ones were split by striking the upper surface of the block, allowing the stone to make a natural split.  The result is stone that reveals fossilized artifacts.  The image above that rises out of the wall surface is actually a section of the natural stone prior to manipulation:  note how it resembles coral!  I'll include a link to the Wikipedia entry for the Getty Center architecture.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getty_Center

  

A wonderful surprise is that my oldest daughter is in LA, and we met her this evening for sushi.  It was so much fun to be together!  The girls hadn't seen each other in 15 years or so....well-before we moved to Texas.