Renovated Getty Villa Museum Draws Crowds in Southern California

By Larry Taylor

The newly renovated Getty Villa in Southern California opened last January, and, judging by the crowds who have turned out, people love it.

After a dozen years of planning and $275 million spent, the new complex is a stunning success.  Taking the original villa built in Malibu in 1973, planners have surrounded it with a series of modernist buildings, including an entry pavilion, an amphitheater, auditoriums, educational facilities, café, and parking garages.

Architects Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti, of Boston,, who took the renovation project on a dozen years ago, have re-imagined the original replica of Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum buried in 79 A.D. by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. They have added a stimulating combination of the old and new, suggesting an archaeological site with walls of the new structures layered horizontally with different material to suggest the strata of an excavation. From the old museum, the collection of French furniture and European master paintings has been removed. The building now houses only art that was created during the period intended.

Over 1,200 works are on view in galleries organized by theme, making the layout very viewer-friendly. For instance art and sculpture dealing with “Mythological Heroes” is grouped in one room, “Dionysus and Theater” in another, as is “Athletes and Competition.” Timelines are included in each room, making it easy to see how pieces fit into the whole of history.

What the villa museum does so effectively is bring to life the ancient world from 6500 B.C. to 400 A.D. for an in-depth view of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Etruscans and the civilizations that paralleled and preceded them. We see the grand life-size bronze, Statue of Victorious Youth, one of the few like this in the world, the incredibly life-like figure of Orpheus casually seated and the awe-inspiring sculpture of two griffins viciously tearing apart their prey.

Originally, the 64-acre Getty Villa site in Malibu was purchased by J. Paul Getty in 1945.  Over two decades later in 1968, the idea for the villa was conceived, duplicating a first-century Roman country house. The Malibu site became the new location of the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1974.  It flourished as a place to view Getty’s extensive art collection. In 1997, however, upon the opening of the new Getty Center in nearby Brentwood, the Villa closed for the renewal project.

Bordered by coastal mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the new Villa evokes the classical world in its landscape and gardens, which have been planted with species known to have flourished in the ancient Mediterranean–olive trees and flowering shrubs abound. Most attractive are the four gardens and ponds and fountains, making for many delightful places to sit and relax. The outer peristyle garden is the largest and grandest with bronze sculpture and replicas of statues from the original Roman villa.

Among other highlights of the Villa are the new 250-seat Auditorium and the 450-seat Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater, an outdoor theater based on ancient prototypes that allows contemporary audiences to experience re-imagined classical performances as they were once viewed.