Spin City
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 5, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 "The Three Bridges, Ljublijana" is on display at the J.
Paul Getty Museum’s current exhibit, "Shaping the Great City:
Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1937." The show
examines 10 cities and the ways in which national identity
influences their architecture.
By Darcy Lewis
Daily Bruin Contributor
Ninth week may inspire in students a desire for escape and
adventure. Fantasies of trips to Europe may be on the minds of
some. But on the minds of the more imaginative? Time travel.
An exhibit currently showing at the J. Paul Getty Museum,
“Shaping the Great City: Modern Architecture in Central
Europe, 1890-1937,” allows weary student to do both. Using
fluid metal piping and suspended urban images to simulate the
layout of a city, a viewer can stroll down the
“avenues” of the exhibit and walk through the great
cities of Vienna, Budapest and Prague, among others. A
museum-goer’s trip is not solely geographical, but also a
chronological, as they pass by drawings, photos, publications and
film footage from several decades.
The multimedia exhibit examines how city planners utilized
architecture to create a sense of national identity in the periods
both before and after World War I. The exhibit features cities
which were part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and
incorporates 11 ethnic groups, each with their own language,
culture and aspirations.
According to the exhibit, in order to construct cities that
reflected the national identities of each distinct culture,
architects in each city used the design and form of city
structures, incorporating tradition and indigenous style in the
color, look and materials of the buildings.
“Shaping the Great City” strives to represent this
creation of place and its relation to national identity. It also
attempts to commit the viewer to thinking about what the
architecture of a modern city, such as Los Angeles, says about the
ideals and culture of that place.
 Photos by The J. Paul Getty Museum "Project for a
Department Store" is part of the Getty’s latest exhibit which is on
display until May 6, 2001. The exhibit’s goals are presented
in two main sections, “The City as Form and Idea,” and
“Modernity, Tradition, and Place.” The first
section seeks to show the construction of place through a display
of various architectural plans and conceptual models. The
second half of the exhibit narrows in on 10 cities, capturing them
through photographs and conceptual drawings at times of pivotal
architectural innovation.
Despite the multitude of examples, it is difficult to see what
ideals, besides culture, are being promoted in the cities
represented in the exhibit. Though each city’s flavor is
distinct, as apparent in the colors, designs and style of the
buildings that are shown, it’s hard to connect how the arch
of a door represents the people of Cracow, in terms of their form
of government, political views, dominant religion or national
ideology.
Those taxed by the idea of struggling to understand the larger
message inherent in the exhibit will find solace in its artistic
and historical aspects. Viewers will find Otto Wagner’s
conceptual architectural design, “View of the Aspern Platz in
Vienna” (1897) a balm to the artistic soul. The piece
combines an artistically masterful rendition of an Austrian
cityscape and also displays Wagner’s distinct architectural
style. Though this piece is particularly striking for its
visual appeal, almost all of the cityscapes prove aesthetically
pleasing.
A historian visiting the exhibit will be delighted by the period
costumes of the figures in the sketches and also with the various
photos and film clips which illuminate the cities as a reality
populated by living people. A film clip that runs above an aisle
devoted to Budapest shows people living their daily lives against
the backdrop of the city, doing things like swimming at a public
pool. This clip best illustrates what the exhibit seeks to do which
is to take a closer look at the effect of a created space on the
people of that nation.
The construction of a city, and its incorporation of national
identity, is easily taken for granted. Those who have grown up in
an American city, for instance, likely never looked at their local
library and thought, “That building is a melting pot of
styles and therefore represents America’s identity as a
nation of immigrants. I’m proud to be an American.”
It is therefore difficult to approach the surreal city created
in the current Getty exhibit without taking its subtle message for
granted too. If nothing else, the viewer can use the rich photos
and drawings on display in the exhibit as a cheap mental vacation
to a Europe of the past.
ART: “Shaping the Great City: Modern
Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1937,” is on now on
display until May 6. For more information visit www.getty.edu.
Admission to the J. Paul Getty Museum is free for students and
parking reservations are no longer needed for students or on
Saturdays, Sundays or after 4 p.m. on weekdays. Students
wanting to take the bus should take MTA No. 516 or the Santa Monica
Big Blue Bus No. 14.
