Facilities

The Interdepartment Program (IDP) in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage is unique in that it provides resources for students in both graduate programs access to facilities located at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and the Getty Villa.

On the UCLA campus, the program is housed in the Cotsen Institute’s facilities located below the Fowler Museum. The Institute provides administrative offices, classroom facilities, student lounge facilities, and a library/study space for students, faculty, and administrators. This location also houses the analytical laboratory for the program.  This lab contains a binocular microscope, a polarized light microscope and a metallurgical microscope.  The lab at the Cotsen Institute is additionally equipped for metallographic sampling and sample preparation. Analytical instrumentation for inorganic analysis, such as portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry and x-ray diffraction (XRD) are also located here.  Additional instrumentation is made available through the various labs and academic departments at UCLA, and current students have benefited from these collaborations for their analytical work through use of a scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), RAMAN spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).

In addition to the analytical laboratory, the IDP has dedicated conservation and research laboratories for students and faculty at the Getty Villa in Malibu. The labs are located in a purpose built building where students are able to take classes and do their practical work in two large laboratory spaces. The lab contains various types of equipment used for teaching and research including: several microscopes (stereo, polarized, metallurgical and fluorescence) all with attachments for photomicrography , a light aging chamber; a laboratory oven; a small furnace; a hot stage for microscopy; a freeze-dryer for waterlogged material; equipment for sampling and sample preparation/polishing; a rotary microtome; and an extensive reference collection of organic materials.    A photography studio is located here for the imaging and technical examination of art.  In addition to digital photography, the lab also contains equipment for specialized examination and photography of art including ultraviolet and infrared filters and a CrimeScope forensic light source. This facility also includes an ancillary classroom, a student workroom with a small library and computers, and an art storage space for the storage and examination of objects and materials. In addition to the facilities available within Getty laboratories, students have supervised access to the x-radiographic equipment at the Getty Villa, allowing for the examination of both small and large-scale objects.

Students in the IDP have access to libraries at both institutions.  With the combination of the various libraries located on the UCLA campus and the collections of the Getty Research Institute and Getty Conservation Institute, students have access to an incredible number of bibliographic resources for their academic and conservation research.

The IDP collaborates with area museums to provide students with access to ethnographic and archaeological materials. The Fowler Museum makes some of its collections available to the program for instructional purposes, treatments and research projects. Collections from other area museums such as the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, the Autry National Center, and the Museum of Man may also be made available.