Make it a Funtain on the Rocks

The search for just the right rocks to fill the centermost fountain at the Getty Center took landscape architects Laurie Olin and Dennis Hitchcock from the Rocky Mountains to Palm Springs. They were looking for an American stone that was compatible with the Italian travertine that so dominates the Getty’s facade. One day, a guy in Columbia, Calif., the heart of the gold country, called them to say, “I’ve got some great rocks here.” After one viewing of the ancient marble boulders, they agreed. The rocks were probably part of an ocean bed that was squeezed upward when two tectonic plates crashed to begin forming the Sierra Nevada range, oh, about 100 million years ago. The architects dug out a dozen of them and, with a crane, built a mockup--cutting a plywood ring, lining it with black plastic, then filling it with water to simulate the fountain. In a torrential rainstorm, Olin dragged a group that included Getty architect Richard Meier and museum director John Walsh--who was initially wary of the idea--to the site. At the end of a muddy road, they saw the full-size mockup. The group was immediately sold. Last winter, the rocks were hauled onto trucks--the heaviest weighs 30 tons--and driven 350 miles south to their new Brentwood home.