On the crisp morning of December 16, 1997, hundreds of people gathered at the entrance to the Getty Center in anticipation of this grand, highly visible art institution opening its doors to the public for the very first time.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, “For years, many of these people had driven by on the freeway gawking skyward to see this romantic place on the hill slowly go up, piece by piece.” The sun had barely started to rise, yet many visitors had arrived hours before. And the cold didn’t seem to bother them; the buzz of excitement kept spirits high, and staff handed out fresh, free coffee to keep guests warm.
At 10am, visitors began boarding the tram for the five-minute ride up the hill. They took in the panoramic views of L.A., including the downtown skyline. Stepping onto the arrival plaza, they were surrounded by more vistas—ocean, city, canyon—all framed by Richard Meier’s dazzling architecture, its surfaces clad in some 300,000 cream-colored travertine blocks imported from a quarry near Rome.
Throughout the day, visitors explored the walkways and strolled by the flowers, trees, and water features of the Central Garden, which Robert Irwin had designed as a sculpture. In the five gallery pavilions, examples of mostly pre–20th-century art, by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Cézanne, among others, were illuminated by natural light, just as their creators had intended, and five inaugural exhibitions were on view. Many guests became aware of the Getty Conservation Institute, Getty Research Institute, and Getty Foundation, programs that had been scattered through L.A. and were brought together on one 24-acre campus after J. Paul Getty’s death. They could also watch an orientation film that offered more history, and the film Art Works: Behind the Scenes at the Getty.
Community Arts Resources (CARS) curated 14 performances by arts groups representing the diversity of Los Angeles, and visitors were treated to taiko and Filipino, Hawaiian, and Indian dance performances, mariachi music, Cuban salsa, a high school gospel choir, storytellers from around the world, seven art workshops, and more. CARS also commissioned giant puppets based on figures in a Getty collection painting, James Ensor’s Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889, and a procession that included the puppets and people who had participated in a carnival-mask-making workshop.
Visitors might also have caught glimpses of movie stars like Denzel Washington and Diane Keaton, artists like Ed Ruscha, and L.A.’s mayor at the time, Richard Riordan, all there for the opening-day festivities. Riordan told the audience, “The new Getty Center captures the spirit of our city’s renaissance. [It] will boost tourism, spur job creation, and add to Los Angeles’s rebounding economic base. [It] will also make a tremendous difference in our cultural landscape by giving young Angelenos access to educational resources and sparking their artistic interest and imagination.” East L.A. rock group Los Lobos, known for the hit song “La Bamba,” performed for the crowd, and hundreds of journalists captured the reactions of the Center’s first guests. Reporters would describe the Center as a “stupendous new castle of classical beauty,” “a cultural fortress,” and “the house that art built.”
Since that inaugural day, the Center has attracted more than 20 million guests, many of whom traveled internationally to visit; presented more than 453 exhibitions; and offered countless concerts, talks, courses, symposia, and other free programs to the public. And for people like Suzanne Muchnic, who reported on the Center’s opening for the Los Angeles Times, the site has played an important role in both her life and career.
“As an art writer for the Times, I have had the great good fortune of traveling to the Mogao Cave Temples in western China, and Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, to report on Getty conservation programs that led to stellar exhibitions. On the job at home, I depended on Getty for an endless supply of subjects—new acquisitions, art shows in the making, research projects—and specialists to interview. Now, in my private life, I continue to frequent the Getty Center for the stimulation of seeing and thinking about uncommon things.”
Reflecting on her first day at the Center, Muchnic says, “I remember thinking that the J. Paul Getty Museum had become much more than a rarefied gem tucked away on the fringe of Malibu. With its cluster of modern buildings on a hill overlooking the city of Los Angeles, the Museum and its greatly enlarged collection was now the artistic heart of an international cultural complex—including conservation and research institutes—that would draw a worldwide variety of visitors and scholars.”
As Muchnic wrote in her Times coverage in 1997, “there has never been anything quite like the Getty Center.”
