LACMA's Pavilion for Japanese Art

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the largest art museum west of Chicago and its huge collection is contained in a sprawling, confusingly laid-out group of buildings in central Los Angeles. One of the most interesting LACMA buildings is the Pavilion for Japanese Art designed by architect Bruce Goff (1904-1982) in the late 1970s. The small but unusual building stands out from the boxy, nondescript buildings which comprise the LACMA's original 1964 campus.

Bruce Goff's idiosyncratic buildings, often described as organic architecture, are characterized by expressive shapes, the use of unusual materials, and spatially complex interiors. Despite Goff's lack of formal architectural training, the University of Oklahoma appointed the self-taught architect as a professor and then as the chairman of their School of Architecture in 1943.

The Pavilion's exterior walls are made of translucent fiberglass panels designed to resemble traditional Japanese rice paper shoji screens. The panels filter the sunlight allowing artwork to be safely illuminated by soft, natural light.

The interior, with its carpeted walls, muted beige color scheme, weird organic foamy shapes, and multi-story spiral gallery, has the feeling of a 1970s Bond villain's lair. However, despite their odd layout and extremely dated decor, the interior spaces work well as elegant and peaceful galleries.

On the Pavilion's roof is an odd structure comprised of supporting cables and tusk-like objects that reference the fossils from the adjacent La Brea Tar Pits. The Tar Pits are an active archeological site next to the LACMA containing skeletons of animals from the last Ice Age including mastodons, mammoths, camels, bison, and saber-tooth tigers who fell into the tar pits tens of thousands of years ago. Skeletons recovered from the pits are on view at the Page Museum next to the LACMA.


The LACMA website and the Page Museum website have more info about visiting the museums.


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The Getty Villa

In the early 1970s, billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty (1892-1976) built a re-creation of a first-century Roman villa on his ranch in Pacific Palisades to display his growing art collection to the public. Critics derided the project as a kitchy theme-park, but Getty defended the faux-Roman villa arguing that it was more appropriate for displaying classical art than a traditional "neutral" museum setting.

The Villa is located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Here is the main pool with the Villa in the background:

The Inner Peristyle has bronze replicas of the statutes found at the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy, the building on which the Getty Villa is based:

In 1997, the Getty Foundation relocated its main collection, as well as its administrative and research centers to the giant Getty Center in nearby Brentwood. The Villa was reopened to the public in 2006 after a major renovation by architects Machado and Jorge Silvetti and it continues to house the Getty's ancient collection.


In 2005, the Italian government indicted the Getty's head antiquities curator, Marion True, for conspiracy to traffic in illegal antiquities. The Getty has since agreed to return dozens of pieces with dubious provenance to Italy. Despite its involvement in controversy, the Getty still holds an excellent ancient art collection which it displays thematically in galleries such as "Women and Children in Antiquity," "Athletes and Competition," and "Wine in Antiquity." The thematic displays and the villa setting make the museum particularly accessible and popular with the general public. Images from the collection are available online on the Getty's website.


The Villa grounds include beautifully landscaped gardens and courtyards, picnic areas, an outdoor cafe, and an open air theater.


With an average of 345 days of sunshine per year in Pacific Palisades, even grumpy people who think the Getty Villa is tacky will probably enjoy a visit.


Admission to the Getty Villa is free, but you have to reserve a time-slot in advance online. If you drive, parking is $15 per car. More information about visiting the Getty Villa is available on the Getty website. The Getty Villa refers to itself as the "Getty Malibu," presumably for marketing purposes, however, it is actually located in Pacific Palisades in the city of Los Angeles, not over the border in the city of Malibu.


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