Getty Magic Illusion Forever Shattered
I was at the Getty today for a Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program meeting and when I went to leave, they had shut down the tram so that they could do some gardening alongside the tracks. So I ended up taking a shuttle bus back down to the parking garage.
The shuttle bus trip seemed exciting at first, but then became a somewhat unwelcome peek into the underbelly of the marble clad art fortress. Something about the many twists and turns (I swear, at one point I think we did a figure eight), combined with the fact that it deposits you far away from the underground parking garage, forcing the shuttle to traverse several blocks of surface streets before entering the garage as a visitor was, broke the illusion of architectural perfection that my previous tram-only experience provided.
This whole tiny experience reminds me of just how important entrances are. I spend a fair amount of my time in and out of dojos, and the minor rituals of entrance and exit of those spaces are a constant contextualizing agent in my life. It’s gotten to the point that I place some great symbolic value in the aesthetics and rituals of entrances and exits in other areas of my life as well. In some way, the silent ascent of the tram from the mundane world of the parking garage to the cloud city illusion of the Getty Center itself mirrors that kind of controlled entrance (to me at least), and the strange and raw exit from the Getty via shuttle sort of violated the rules of my relationship to the place.
April 24th, 2007 at
Very interesting. I work at the Getty and after reading this, it seems that you took a shuttle that went down through the South Gate, then took you up Sepulveda to re-enter the parking structure. That describes the underbelly (and the dirty loading dock where we get mail and stuff) of this travertine-encrusted fortress. This is quite unusual. Maybe it’s because you were here on a Monday, a closed Getty day, which altered the routes. Perhaps the next time you get on a shuttle heading back down to parking, it will take you down the usual “main” route, which runs pretty parallel to the tram tracks. Since the Stark collection is being installed on the Tram level at the Lower Station and the area is closed off, shuttles have been driving into the parking structure to drop off on P1, rather than its customary stop at the Tram level. But you’d be coming down the hill, pass through the gate arm, and a right turn into the structure. The ride sometimes still takes 20 minutes, though. Sucks to be us. I hope you get to ride the shuttle again on a normal route because I’d be interested to see what you think/feel of it.
April 24th, 2007 at
I thought that there was a route that runs parallel to the tracks. When we took the alternate route, I figured I was just mistaken.
They did have a crane moving a sculpture into position by the tram while I was there. The driver of our shuttle was talking with a co-worker about it. Their conversation was pretty interesting. I always wonder what the “non-arts” personnel of institutions think about the art and operations of the institutions they work for.
April 25th, 2007 at
Ahh, yet another subject of discussion. Our shuttle drivers are not Getty employees! They are contracted drivers from another company, and have barely any face-time with Getty employees. Same with the Cafe/Restaurant people. Outsourced! I also wonder if these wonder about the weird organization they work for and us crazy and often unfriendly people who get on and off their buses. Our mail services / logistics people used to drive the shuttles, but someone decided that was inefficient and lead to our mail not being delivered on time or something. Or it made those employees ask for overtime due to scheduling (7am - 7pm, when the shuttles generally run). The shuttle drivers also have their own part-time shifts. I never see the morning drivers in the evening, and vice versa. I don’t know if they do anything else, even though shuttle departure times are more scarce (every 20 - 30 mins) between 10am and 4pm, when no one would be using them. And only once in a while do I notice one of them eating by herself in the Cafe. Very rarely, though.
April 26th, 2007 at
Wow! So much new info about the underbelly of the Getty.