Making Architecture: The Getty Center (Getty Trust Publications: J. Paul Getty Museum)

The spectacular new Getty Center in Los Angeles boasts
commanding views of the Pacific Ocean, the city of Los Angeles, and the Santa
Monica Mountains. Designed by internationally acclaimed architect Richard
Meier, the complex manifests Meier’s aim to “search out a precise and
exquisitely reciprocal relationship between built architecture and natural
topography.”

This book documents the making of that architecture. Meier,
Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, and key Getty
administrators reflect on the construction effort and on the meaning of the
Center complex itself. Images from several photographers capture the many
facets of the Getty campus during construction and as completed, while Robert
Irwin’s drawings illustrate his vision for the Center’s Central Garden. Making Architecture, then, serves as
both a record of the building process and a visual commentary on the drama of
the architecture.