Visiting California

the Getty – landscape design (NOT by an LA of course..) is pretty interesting..after that, Big Sur cliff walk – otters!  SF you can do a really fun ‘staircase gardens ‘ tour – you can look it up on-line..

personally not enthusiastic about Ca design, plant palette, etc..Be prepared to drive at 80mph everywhere being tailgated by a line of twenty cars, twelve feet behind your bumper..fun…not…

Hop over to NY, and see the real stuff.

Oh, Gilroy Gardens is pretty cute if you have kids..

Noguchi’s California Scenario –

http://inthelandscape.com/2010/05/isamu-noguchis-california-scenario-costa-mesa-ca/

That website is great too… It covers most of the classics in SoCal.

Only the bowl-thingie was not conceptually designed by an LA, the rest of the site was designed by OLIN. The bowl-thingie was desinged by an ‘artist’ with the help of a horticulturist during SD and Spurlock Poirier LAs from DD’s onward.  

I’d add in Rainbow Harbor in Long Beach and the attached aquarium there.

Nick! Welcome back to California.  I know you said you are roaming the Coast, but maybe you should try a diversion from West to East across the State.  California’s best design is the access to nature.  In two days you could bisect Big Sur, the Central Valley, Yosemite and jog down to Death Valley and back.  It is a lot of driving, but is amazing.  To the guy from New York… how does the Giant Sequoia (largest tree on earth) and Bristle Cone Pine (Oldest living thing on earth) work for the “real stuff.” Do we all surf and live on the beach too? 

Nice list, Mary but he did ask “between” Monterey and San Diego. San Francisco is a 2 hour trip up north from Cannery row. Don’t miss Balboa Park and Old town in San Diego. For a spectacular natural setting, do not pass up Yosemite National park. All you have to do is go to the websites of your favorite designers and see their list of works in the cities you plan to tour.

I used ‘arttist’ in quotations for a reason.The central garden is the weak point of the Getty complex. Doubly so for that HIDEOUS granite block wall where the waterfall is, scaled so poorly it looks like a cheap concrete block wall, and all nicely stained from the minerals in the water. The central stream is weak, and besides the cool rebar trellises for the bougainvillea, the whole design it is mediocre at best. From what I have read and seen, Irwin was totally incompitent for the task as he could not grasp the idea of grading, drainage, or even the plant materials. He had to heavily rely on Spurlock an 14 other consultants which the Getty had to hire to have some sense of reality and get the job done. Kind of like having a fry cook do your heart surgery. Imagine if a real LA (modernist or contemporary classicist) had done the design from the beginning, it would have been more artful (perhaps land sculpture such as a Hargreaves design), used better and matching materials, and would have been more in context for an art museum and the amazing Richard Meier architecture that is the Getty.

That being said, somebody who paints solid colors on canvas and hangs it in a gallery is not an artist in my book. Even Rothko used 3 colors.

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