"Getty Museum" Los Angeles Travelogue by american_tourister

The museum was built by the Getty Foundation to warehouse their art collection that dates from the year 1000 AD. Everything else will be on display at the old museum in Malibu and will be called the "Museum of Antiquities".

The edifice is located on a 600 acre tract at I-405 and Sunset Boulevard and offers incredible views of Brentwood, Malibu, Westwood, and West LA. The Foundation bought the land and spent $1,000,000,000.00 to erect the facility. That is not a misprint. It is 1 BILLION Dollars!

The building is wrapped in Travertine marble from Italy. It has fossils in it! The Foudation bought the quarry that supplied the Travertine for the original Coliseum in Rome just to supply these buildings.

Spend a whole day here. There is a video about how they built it and there is a neat self guided tour, or you can go with Docents on tours. Admission and the tours are free of charge. There is a $5.00 fee to park in the garage and you must have reservations. The easiest thing to do is to park in the designated lot at the Veteran's Hospital on Wilshire and ride the bus to the tram. This is free.

The restarant is 5 star. Even the cafeteria has very good food.

Same guy that painted "The Scream". I guess they have some sunshine deprevation issues in Norway.

This was the first staute that J. Paul Getty purchased back in the 1950s.

The impressionists collection is staggering. What no picture or print hsows you is the texture of the painting. van Gogh used very heavy brush storkes and this painting has a 3-D effect when viewed in person.

This picture gives you a better idea of the depth.

There are beautiful moving water ways throughout the grounds and one of them rains through this grotto.

The Emperor who was smothered by his own son in the film "Gladiator".

An interesting Bronze done in the lost wax process.