America's Favorite Architecture

I made my first visit to The Getty during recent trip to L.A. from Colorado to see my little grand-daughter. I'm a photographer, it was a beautiful deep blue sky day and I spent almost the entire day, "outside". The visual delights are endless, a photographer's playground. I'm fairly well traveled and The Getty ranks very high with me architecturally. I must return and see the galleries the next time!

I am surprised at the lowly standing of the Getty Museum in your listing. It is easily one of the most impressive building sites ever built in the US, standing comparison in my opinion with any in the world. Perhaps the problem is that it is a collection of buildings arranged around a spectacular site. But in total it is much more impressive than any of the precious artifacts contained in its collections.

The travertine stone of the facade has porous patterns that, to me, simulate abstract painting, like the ones inside. In a few places the travertine protrudes in rectangular panels as if these were paintings. It's as if to say the building is a work of art too.

Don,

Don't bother with the galleries. They don't have the collection to support them, and they are terribly conservative, uninteresting, and clash with the exterior.

Ranking this 95th indicates to me that this survey is a total fraud. Many (perhaps most) of the higher ranking buildings would not even be known by the vast majority of Americans. There appears to me to be a certain bias here toward the east coast. Can anyone really believe that a cross section of Americans would rank the Rose Center for Earth & Space three times higher on the list than the Getty? or the Delano Hotel? or the Ronald Reagan Building?
Give me a break!