A passion project for a US oil tycoon, the Getty Villa recreates a Roman villa buried by a volcanic eruption and houses 44,000 antiquities. Billionaire J. Paul Getty found his ranch in coastal Pacific Palisades too cluttered with his extensive collection of ancient artworks, so in 1970, he commissioned a new gallery to be built further down the property – a full-scale recreation of the Villa dei Papiri, a luxurious estate once owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law that was buried by lava during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.
Adapting plans of the original villa drawn up by 18th-century excavators and incorporating details from other Roman houses, Getty obsessed over every detail – from trompe l’oeil murals to polygonal driveway stones replicating the roads of Pompeii – with the result an evocative time machine to ancient times. Sadly, Getty never laid eyes on his lavish creation – he moved overseas and died two years after its opening in 1974. The Roman architect Vitruvius asserted that a structure must exhibit three attributes: strength, utility and beauty, with the latter defined by perfect proportions and symmetry.
This theory is reflected in every aspect of Getty Villa’s design – from its sky-lit atrium leading to the Inner Peristyle to the 67-metre reflecting pool surrounded by colonnades in the Outer Peristyle. Even garden plantings are mirrored to perfection, while water features draw the eye to a central motif, whether a mosaic fountain or a .