What the Getty Can’t Buy: Time

“It’s crunch time,” says Curtis D. Williams, director of construction and facilities for the $1-billion Getty Center in Brentwood. With less than two months to go before the Getty’s gleaming new palace opens to the public on Dec. 16, he’s not kidding.

A cool guy in a hot seat, Williams might be expected to downplay his dilemma with an obvious understatement. But any visitor to the six-building, 110-acre cultural complex can see that this is Stress Central.

Nearly 16 years since the J. Paul Getty Trust received an endowment of $1.3 billion--now worth about $4.5 billion--14 years since the spectacular site was announced and six years since architect Richard Meier’s design was unveiled, the complex unites the trust’s programs and gives the Getty an imposing public presence. Along with a new museum to display perpetually growing art collections, the Getty Center also houses the trust’s administrative offices, a grant program and institutes for art education, research, conservation and information.

All the buildings are complete and fully occupied, Williams says. The Research Institute’s collections of 750,000 books, 2 million photographs and special collections of sketchbooks, archives and artists’ correspondence have been moved into new quarters, and all but the most light-sensitive artworks have been installed in the museum’s galleries.

But much remains to be done, and the tension is palpable. Although the number of construction workers on site has dropped to a mere 500--from a high of 1,000 when earth was being moved and the buildings were rising--the site still has pockets of intense activity.

At the base of the hill, the unpaved road is a mess, with open trenches on either side and pebbles flying off the tires of heavy equipment. Impromptu traffic cops in hard hats and orange vests whip out hand-held stop signs with authoritative speed, giving right-of-way to construction equipment and trucks carrying essential cargo.

Shortly before 9 a.m., one worker crouches to drill a hole in a concrete retaining wall, while another lugs an aluminum extension ladder down the road and still another trudges out of the subterranean parking structure hefting a huge cardboard box on his shoulders.

A truck carries a large tree up the hill, to be planted as a concession to neighbors who want their property shielded from the Getty. Pickups and service vehicles loaded with pipes, wallboard and fertilizer wend their way out of the center as a forklift lumbers across the road and disappears into a barren stretch of land where trailers serve as makeshift offices for subcontractors.

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Meanwhile, on the top of the hill, two dozen men work feverishly on artist Robert Irwin’s “Central Garden,” a 134,000-square-foot project featuring a zigzag path over a stream, leading to a maze of azaleas that appears to float in a pond.

Sycamore and myrtle trees have been planted and the azalea maze is in place, but with much of the steel substructure still exposed, no water in the ponds and much ground work and planting yet to be done, the garden appears to be a long way from completion.

“The garden and the area at the bottom of the hill are the two places we have our fingers crossed,” Williams confesses. While he surveys the activity with Richard Naranjo, the Getty’s manager of grounds and gardens, a plumber tightens a valve on the irrigation system and a welder fashions a V-shaped housing for a ground-level light fixture. Shaded by a sheet of blue plastic attached to sticks, masons set thin slices of dark stone on their sides and fill in cracks with black grout as they complete a pathway.

The major obstacle to progress in the garden at the moment is a crane parked on the upper level. It’s poised to lift the last three of four large travertine sections into the mouth of a grotto, designed by Meier. The process has taken a week longer than expected, but the crane should be moved off site soon, Williams says. Then Naranjo and his crew can build a berm and plant the banks of flowers that will line the stream.

“We’ve had to put our heads together and figure out how to do things that have never been done,” Naranjo cheerfully acknowledges, while insisting the unconventional project is exciting. He still faces a batch of perplexing challenges. The garden will be a work-in-progress until it matures in about seven years and many of the plantings may be adjusted in the process, he says.

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One question is how to trim the outer sides of two rows of 40-foot-tall sycamores like hedges, as Irwin has requested. “In Europe they use ladders to trim tall hedges, but OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] won’t allow that here,” Naranjo says.

With a wet winter reportedly on the way, Naranjo is also concerned about retaining plants on steeply graded areas in the garden. Meanwhile, in the recent heat wave, the azaleas are drying out, so a gardener is spraying them with a chemical product formulated to help the peat moss hold water.

Williams thinks both of his major worry spots--the garden and the entrance area--will be resolved in time to greet the crowds. But who knows? Every time something is finished, a new problem crops up or somebody gets a bright idea about a change or improvement, he says.

Planters on a museum patio next to a snack kiosk have been scrapped to make room for more tables and chairs, so additional paving stones are needed. At the same time, similar stones in the museum’s courtyard are being ripped out to make way for poles that will support banners.

A vine climbing up one museum wall looks great, but it’s growing into a crevice in the stone. Williams worries that it will bring moisture into the building and makes a mental note to consult the architect.

Checking off other items on his agenda, he brings up the problem of several hundred potted plants, yet to be installed. “They can’t sit on saucers, but we can’t have water running all over the place,” he says rolling his eyes as he tries to think of a solution.

Halfway into a 12-hour day that started at 6:45 a.m., Williams has lunch with a group of high-level staff in the Getty cafe. Then he rides the tram downhill and lopes off to a meeting in one of the trailers. Fifteen men--representing general contractor Dinwiddie Construction Co., several subcontractors, the architect and the museum--are tackling an 11-point agenda on the galleries’ sun louvers.

The computerized system designed to control light in the galleries, tracking changing conditions over the course of each day, is the most technologically advanced to date. But, after months of tinkering, it still doesn’t work right and it’s driving the technicians crazy. The photocells don’t read the light in the galleries accurately, so the louvers don’t move properly. Problems with clocks in the computers are adding to the difficulty.

Frustration surfaces as the meeting proceeds, but so does hope. “Snoots,” or metal collars, around the fixtures appear to cut out ambient light that skews the readings, and aiming the photocells lower on walls seems to yield greater accuracy.

Returning to the museum with Rick Pribnow, the Getty’s manager of plant engineering, Williams checks progress on the louvers as a technician with a laptop computer calibrates photocells.

“All these little things,” Pribnow says. “Nobody ever imagined that all these details would be so critical. Usually when you are setting up something new you can look at what somebody else has done. In this case, there is nothing else.”

Back in his office late in the afternoon, Williams prepares for a private meeting on sensitive logistics of opening events. “There’s so much going on now,” he says, “things can change from hour to hour.”

Practically on cue, a secretary alerts the harried manager: Before his next meeting begins, someone else needs his attention.

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Some Unfinished Business

With the Getty Center’s Dec. 13-14 official opening ceremonies less than two months away, a long checklist of chores, big and small, remain to be done. Here’s a partial to-do list.

* Transform the main entrance at Getty Center Drive from a construction site into a finished formal gateway to the complex. This includes paving the road and completing a kiosk where attendants will check reservations and collect $5 parking fees.

* Install picnic tables and benches near the tram loading zone.

* Finish the Robert Irwin “Central Garden.” This entails building a berm leading up to sycamores along the stream, planting grasses and flowers, fine-tuning the irrigation system, finishing a black-stone pathway, attaching teak bench seats to metal frames and filling the pool with water.

* Place 200 potted plants in the major plazas and public spaces around the complex to make the site more inviting.

* Remove bugs from the computerized sun louvers that control light in the galleries.

* Install light-sensitive photographs, drawings and manuscripts in the galleries.

* Finish the museum’s inaugural exhibitions: “Beyond Beauty: Antiquities as Evidence” and “Making Architecture: The Getty Center From Concept Through Construction.”

* Complete installation of recently commissioned contemporary works by two of L.A.’s most prominent artists: Alexis Smith’s three-part, mixed-media wall piece, “Taste,” in the restaurant; and Edward Ruscha’s monumental painting of light streaming through space in the auditorium lobby.