The Getty Center
Last updated September 21, 2026
In Richard Meier’s cream-travertine buildings, the galleries were made for looking slowly, with natural light falling across six centuries of Western art, from about 1250 to 1920. You come for the paintings — Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Cézanne — but the setting never feels like a neutral container.
The journey helps. A five-minute tram carries you up to the hilltop arrival plaza, where Los Angeles opens out towards the ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. Inside, the collection moves beyond painting into sculpture, decorative arts, photography and manuscripts, so a visit can feel broad without becoming vague.
Leave time for Robert Irwin’s Central Garden. It is a 134,000-square-foot living work of art, with a watercourse, terraces and more than 500 plant varieties that shift with the seasons. Admission to the Getty Center is free, though on-site parking is charged.
