Getty Center Central Garden

The Central Garden at the Getty Center was a topic of much controversy during its construction. Designed by famed painter Robert Irwin, the gardens do not follow the gridded nature of the adjacent buildings, but rather slash across the 'valley', and mix bright swathes of colour against the green lawns before ending in a large circular pool. Richard Meier so hated the garden's design that a documentary called 'Concert of Wills: Making the Getty Center' primarily focuses on the arguments between the two designers. Luckily for us, Irwin's design won out. As Irwin puts it, "A garden is an adventure, and nature is probably the closest thing you're going to get to that kind of -- moving in a world, you know -- push-pull, in-out, up-down, right and wrong. After a certain time, once the garden got going, it changed all the rules. It did things that were so much better than I had thought."