Event 2- Daniel Eaton

Yesterday I went to the Getty museum for my second event. Although I’ve been in the westwood area the last four years I’ve never been to the Getty before, and discovered that the getty is actually really beautiful. The specific area I spent the most time at was called the “Overdrive” exhibit which focused on all of Los Angeles. It included a wide range of aspects about Los Angeles and I found it really interesting.

Unfortunately I found out once inside that pictures were not allowed so I took this picture from the outside. Pictures would have been useful however, because as mentioned it talked about the many aspects of Los Angeles which was a lot of information. Some of the things that stood out to me about it were the emphasis on the freeways and traffic throughout Los Angeles (Which I hate the traffic here so it was ironic). Other things besides the traffic that had a lot of information was the design, layout, and architecture of the greater Los Angeles area, as well as the growth of the city overall. I really enjoyed this because prior to this, it’s something that I’ve thought about in classes that came up here or there but never really went deeper into and specifically the uniqueness of these aspects of Los Angeles compared to other major cities.

I was surprised how descriptive it was with the growth of the freeway and then the traffic that came with it so fast. It was a timeline view of the city and its growth with specific events that made the city become a Major city. The growth of the city of Los Angeles is similar to the human body and its growth, specifically looking at the nervous system. The nervous system obviously is built up of many neurons that are separate, however once activated through movement or action they start growing and coming together to form a network. It’s very similar to Los Angeles in regards that it was small separate pieces here and there that slowly become connected to one another to form into a Major city. 

When I came to Ucla I really had an interest in architecture as a possible major, it conflicted with my athletics schedule however. After going to the Getty, that interest was kind of brought back to em because of part of the exhibit was the types of architecture throughout Los Angeles. It gave different backgrounds of artist and their viewpoints of looking and creating architecture which I thought was really cool. Most of them tried to break away from straight line architecture which was the norm of their times that engineers would suggest/follow. Artist breaking away from this norm was actually disliked by people living in the LA area, specifically Santa Monica and Brentwood residents who preferred the straight line methods. The places that really embraced these different and new artistic styles were Hollywood and Bel Air. Overall from looking at the architecture information, I really got a grasp of the many different aspects and designs of each area within Los Angeles that make up and create the greater Los Angeles area and give it a unique blend unlike any other Major city. The last four years living here I’ve never really noticed or looked for the difference between areas, but now going forward I will take advantage of the trip to the Getty and the cool pieces of information it gave me to examine certain areas of LA. I overall highly recommend a trip to the getty, and specifically to the “Overdrive” exhibit.