Views from Getty

In “Architecture as Spectacle” (Opinion, May 3), Anthony Vidler expresses his intellectual opinion on the unexpected popularity of the new Getty Museum by giving all the credit to the architecture. I feel that he missed the more basic, emotional reason for this attraction.

Yes, the architect’s vision and implementation are beyond praise, but the architecture of the museum is like the mounting, designed to enhance the diamond. The view of Los Angeles, breathtakingly, magnificently captured, framed and displayed, is what draws the crowds. It isn’t an intellectual appreciation of the architecture itself (although that certainly adds to the pleasure, on another level). It plays on the emotional need of the people to enjoy the beauty of their city, like small children entranced by their mother’s features. It is this need that draws the Florentines to Piazzale Michelangelo and the Romans to the Pincio.

Richard Meier understood this. Standing in awe before this view, the tourists shed their prejudices against “the crime-ridden capital of La-La Land,” and those of us who call Los Angeles home forget dirt, graffiti and road rage and let our spirits and our pride soar as we embrace our city in all her beauty, “from the mountains to the sea.”

LIDA M. BATES, Laguna Hills