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Article: View from the Getty: what its billions bought.(J. Paul Getty Center)(includes related articles on other Getty programs and on the museum's Web site)
- Article from:
- Art in America
- Article date:
- May 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Sounds like a design for disaster: construct a major art complex on a hilltop vulnerable to earthquake, soil erosion and fire. Pick an architect known for an austere modernist style, then insist that he change it. Price the project (in a 1983 letter to the architect at $75-100 million; then announce, after 14 years, that it actually cost a cool billion-a budget overrun of a size that the project's officials had repeatedly and publicly insisted could never occur.
The fact that the six-building, 24-acre J. Paul Getty Center came through all this and much more as successfully as it did is a tribute to deep commitment and deep pockets. Even with the huge capital ...