tales from the getty villa

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My wife and I took a short trip to Machado Silvetti’s Getty Villa a few months ago.  I brought along my sketchbook and put down a few details, ideas, or forms that I found fascinating – from the archaeological ‘Roman’ architecture of the Villa proper, Machado Silvetti’s modernist interventions, or the ancient Roman and Greek antiquities housed inside, including that splendid bronze staircase (underside of risers and stone handrail).

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a marble cube

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This room comes from a very unlikely place – a simply detailed restroom at Richard Meier’s Getty Center.  A heavily veined dark grey marble floor stood in nice contrast to the Carrara marble wainscotting and white plaster walls above.  That’s where things started.  This version panels out the Carrara walls on the interior, topping it off with a tall conic skylight (maybe the Getty galleries?), and all of it wrapped in a Tuscan-detailed wood wrapper.

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