The Getty Center in Los Angeles, which welcomed 1.3 million visitors last year, has announced a major renovation project that will close its doors for a year starting 15 March 2027.
The project will consist of the most significant upgrades since the museum opened in 1997 and will include a revamp of the complex’s iconic tram, just in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The Getty Villa, located about 10 miles away in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, will remain open and host additional programming and some of the Getty Center’s most famous works of art in the interim. Getty will also open a new permanent space on Sepulveda Boulevard.
“Getty is embarking on an exciting new chapter,” Katherine E. Fleming, the president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said in a statement. “In the coming years, guided by our commitment to All for Art, we will enhance the visitor experience across the Getty Center campus through reimagined spaces and new offerings, while prioritising sustainability.”
According to Matt Stevens of The New York Times, the tram that takes visitors up the hill from the Getty Center’s parking structure to its campus needed to be replaced—“It breaks down with much greater frequency than it should,” Fleming told the Times—which became an impetus to think about other necessary upgrades. The new tram will greatly shorten the queue of waiting visitors, transporting 400 people more per hour than its predecessor. It will also include a musical soundtrack, and its departure and arrival areas will be redesigned.
Together with the tram update, the Getty Center will rework 27,000 sq. ft of its gallery space, commission new outdoor art, improve parking and accessibility, renovate its welcome hall (including a new café and museum shop) and improve phone signals and wireless internet across its hilltop campus. An upgrade to its HVAC system is already underway. According to Malia Mendez of the Los Angeles Times, the renovation is estimated to cost between $600m and $800m.