Accountability and Architecture Meet at the Getty

Wide-ranging book review comments on the context of the Getty's recent catastrophes.

Martin Filler in the New York Review of Books uses an in-house publication of the Getty Trust  (EIN 95-1790021 Form 990) about the newly restored Getty Villa as the pretext for an opinion piece about the recent troubles at the Getty.  It's fun to read as it exposes how the Getty's great wealth has periodically exposed it to risk of legal and ethical lapses, starting from its creation as a tax dodge, open to the public for a few hours a week to maintain its charity status.   

Mr. Filler being an architecture critic (for House & Garden, where he blogs from time to time), there's a good bit about the history of the Getty buildings, both the original villa and the Getty Center, especially about the critical and popular reaction to the villa when it first opened.  It was retro before retro was cool.  There are also some observations along the way about how the founder's intent is distorted and lost over time. 

But there's no way to escape comment about the co-author of the book, Marion True, the former curator of the Getty, still on trial in Italy for the theft of antiquities.  Mr. Filler relays the comments about Ms. True being a scapegoat for the failings of unnamed Getty officials' uncooperative stance against Italian authorities.  He believes that simple human error is the source of the Getty's woes. 

My view is that human error is always at work—so a large institution needs internal structures to detect and correct them, otherwise the institutions of society as a whole (like the courts) will inevitably become involved. 

Here are the WMN postings about the Getty this year:
California AG: Getty Trust Has Suffered Enough (October 5)
Getty Board Paid $4 Million to Investigate CEO (September 5)
Getty Trust Goes Public with Governance Documents (August 1)
Getty Trust Head Steps Down without Severance (February 10)