J Paul Getty Center

John Szarkowski put himself out to pasture in 1991, ending a 29-year career as director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He returned to the art world 14 years later, but as an artist. A retrospective exhibition of his photographs opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2005 and traveled to four other museums, including MoMA.

For the first time, in answer to rumors of cost overruns and published reports pegging the price of the J. Paul Getty Center as high as $1 billion, Getty officials have revealed that the estimated cost of the center will be $733 million. In 1991, when architect Richard Meier's plans were unveiled, the Getty had estimated construction costs alone at $360 million, but declined to reveal the full price of the undertaking.

FOR some parents, simply getting their kids through the doors of a museum is a triumph. Asking them to actually look at the art might seem like pushing it. Best to let them sail past the busts, perhaps absorbing a bit of the great masters' genius by osmosis. Strange, then, on a recent Saturday at the Getty Center to see a group of children as young as 3 staring raptly at, of all things, a 17th century French cabinet.

Think of the latest installment of Getty's Selected Shorts as a twist on the cliche that every picture tells a story. The theme for the 16th season of the storytelling series is "Where We Live: Fictions of America," and it focuses on works that spring from any number of this country's multitudinous landscapes.

IF you happen to be at the Getty Center this Sunday, don't be surprised if you come face to face with a playful dragon or gryphon (a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle) guided by riders walking on stilts. As it turns out, the evocative life-size articulated puppets, known as the Dragon Knights, are among the many animal-related performers who will be populating the Getty's pre-summer Family Festival.

WOOD-BLOCK models, drawings and notes for 200 Modern buildings and projects completed over half a century have taken over four rooms of Ray Kappe's Pacific Palisades house. But in a few weeks, moving vans will transport the architect's life's work a few miles away to its permanent new home: the antiquities-rich Getty Center.

Sit in a replica of one of Marie Antoinette's chairs in a new exhibit at the Getty Center in Brentwood and, through wizardry involving surveillance cameras and projection systems, you'll find yourself inserted into video footage of her bedroom at the Petit Trianon, the queen's private retreat on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.

ALMOST nine years and $275 million later, a beautifully refurbished and expanded Getty Villa at the edge of Malibu has reopened to curious visitors. As the nation's only museum devoted solely to the art of Classical antiquity, the Villa is a magnificent gift to the public. Don't expect it to have much discernible impact on the art life of Los Angeles, though. The museum will surely make a difference to scholars and students.

In an effort to put its rapidly growing photography collection under a bigger, brighter spotlight, the Getty Center in Brentwood will expand its photography exhibition space from 1,700 square feet to 7,000 square feet. The new galleries -- in the West Pavilion, directly below the existing photography galleries -- will be created from space that had been devoted to antiquities while the Getty Villa in Malibu was being remodeled.

Admission is still free, but visitors to the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades will shell out an extra dollar for parking at the two cultural institutions when fees go up to $8, beginning Sept. 19. The hike "is basically due to increased costs in running the parking operation," said Getty spokeswoman Julie Jaskol. This is the second fee increase for the Getty Center since it opened in December 1997.