Travertine Architecture
Images and story coming soon.
The reflecting pool and circular boulder fountain in the Museum Courtyard – the North and East Pavilions are reflected in the pool.
A tall travertine wall leads south from the Getty Center central campus, a 106 acre complex in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles which houses the Getty Museum, Getty Research Center and Getty Trust administrative buildings, to the Cactus Garden on the South Promontory. This garden, an unusual collection of indigenous cacti, has sweeping views of Los Angeles, the ocean and surrounding mountains.
The 120-foot-long linear fountain in the Museum Courtyard, shaded by row of Mexican cypress
A gallery in the East Pavilion showing Italian paintings and sculpture from the 18th century
Benches and walkways around the reflecting pool and boulder fountain in the Museum Courtyard. The flawless white travertine used for the many benches was personally picked by architect Richard Meier from the quarries in Bagni di Tivoli, about 15 miles east of Rome.
A snack area just off the central courtyard
Lounging by a pool
A rough cleft wall of travertine contrasts with the smooth, polymer coated aluminum curves of the Museum Entrance Hall facia. To attain the rough surface desired by Richard Meier, the Mariotti family in their Bagni di Tivoli finishing factory developed a guillotine technique to split the stone.
A view of the Center from the west shows part of the extensive gardens below the central campus.
The setting sun highlights the textures of the cleft cut travertine. Around 110,000 square meters of the stone was used for building walls and paving.
Water rises up and out of a curved travertine “headstone” and flows down a long chute into a smooth circular hole that leads down to the Central Garden.
Reflections from the travertine chute and attached bench create the illusion of transparency.
The west end of the Museum Entrance Hall
Travertine steps and wall lead up to the Museum Entrance Hall
A smiling guard in I. M. Pei’s Bank of China Head Office in Beijing. Around 60,000 square meters of smooth Roman travertine from quarries in Bagni di Tivoli were used in the structure.
Circular openings in the wall behind a reception desk highlight a bamboo grove in the atrium.
The vast atrium of the Bank of China Head Office in Beijing
A wall of travertine in the Bank of China Head Office
The Bank of China Head Office in Beijing
A pool in the atrium
At New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Metropolitan Opera House flanked by the Avery Fisher Hall (now named the David Geffen Hall) on the right, home of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and on the left, the David H Koch Theater, home of the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera
The Josie Robertson Plaza at the Lincoln Center
The solid travertine balustrades of the many exterior travertine stairways of the Center
A travertine cap
The travertine “vanes” of the north wall of the Metropolitan Opera House
David H Koch Theater – home of the New York City Opera
The Guerlain shop on Place Vendome, Paris
Interior of the Guerlain shop
Hallmark Cards Building on 56th and Fifth Avenue, NYC
Hallmark Cards
Dragon Air Headquarters, Hong Kong
Jin Mao Tower. When it was built, it was the tallest building in Asia.
Travertine interior, Jin Mao Tower
Travertine interior, Jin Mao Tower
Sears Tower, Chicago – renamed Willis Tower. From 1973 to 1998 it was the tallest building in the world. It is now the 12th tallest.
The travertine interior of the Sears Tower with its centerpiece, the large mobile/sculpture, Universe, by Alexander Calder
Century City, Los Angeles
Travertine steps at Century City, Los Angeles
Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles
The Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank O. Gehry, uses travertine extensively for exterior steps and interior floors and walls
Peek and Cloppenburg in Dusseldorf, Germany
A courtyard at MGIC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Seven World Trade Center, New York City, designed by Emery Roth & Sons
NDC Headquarters, Beijing
One Raffles Link, interior – Singapore
One Raffles Link interior – Singapore
American General Center, Nashville – exterior and interior, walls and paving clad entirely with smooth Roman travertine – by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
American General Center
American General Center, interior, Nashville
Soka University, library steps, Aliso Viejo, California
Ronald Reagan Federal Building, Santa Ana, California
Ronald Reagan Federal Building, plaza, Santa Ana, California
California Institute of Technology, Broad Center, Pasadena, California
Spanish Steps Renovation, Rome
Link to Quarries