Dome

Research Institute, interior; The Getty Center sits on a hilltop in the Santa Monica Mountains, just off the San Diego Freeway. The hilltop affords views of both the Pacific Ocean and the San Gabriel Mountains, and the vast street-grid of the city. The Getty Center is a complex of museum galleries, libraries, offices and gardens. Two computer-operated trams elevate visitors from a street-level parking facility to the top of the hill. Clad in cleft-cut Italian travertine, the campus is organized around a central arrival plaza. Curvilinear design elements and natural gardens soften the grid created by the travertine squares. Because neighbors requested that the complex be no more than two stories above grade, all of the buildings extend underground and are linked with subterranean corridors. Source: The Getty [website]; http://www.getty.edu/ (accessed 7/10/2010)