DESIGN SURPRISES VISITORS UPON SECOND, THIRD GLANCE.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

Already it has been compared to the Athenian Acropolis, a buffed-out Tuscan hill town and a marooned ocean liner.

But to Peter Galassi, the best analogy for the about-to-open $1 billion Getty Center comes from Hollywood. Specifically, the Hollywood where super-cool British secret agents battle villains named Goldfinger and Blofeld.

``As a friend of mine says, you get off the tram and you expect to be met by bombshell girls with Uzis, like something in James Bond,'' said Galassi, chief curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. ``Then you get in there and the truth is, it's beautiful, it's monumental in scale, and it's fantastic.''

Irreverence followed by adulation; skepticism yielding to seduction. Those mixed responses aren't uncommon toward L.A.'s latest and costliest architectural tour de force, which officially opens Dec. 16.

Thirteen years ago, when the J. Paul Getty Trust tapped Richard Meier to design its hilltop ``campus,'' most onlookers expected big, white, rectangular panels - the esteemed New York architect's signature. And from the blurred vantage point of the San Diego Freeway, Meier's Getty Center does indeed look big, boxy and, well, call it off-white (though not, heaven forbid, beige).

It's a formidable facade, bedecked in huge chunks of travertine marble and sinuous metal, and at a distance it appears somewhat heavy-handed and monolithic.

Up close, however, Meier's six-building complex is a study in serendipity, a surprisingly unintimidating place where patterns and preconceptions are constantly unraveling and interrupting themselves.

Like the five-minute elevated tram ride that lifts you to its summit, Meier's complex presents itself as a comfortable, don't-rush-me journey. Nearly every twist and turn of the museum brings a dramatic new perspective - a vista of mist-wrapped Palos Verdes or a close encounter with an interior rock waterfall.

Here, a curving metal balcony thrusts out like a giant Steinway piano. There, a deliberately rough-cut marble slab breaks giddily out of a smooth stone expanse.

Twenty-first-century technology puts a new slant on millenia-old art. Environment-controlled cases display the Getty's impressive collection of Medieval illuminated manuscripts. Time-operated louvers direct just the right amount of sun at the delicate Old Master canvases. On a normally perfect L.A. day, there'll be no need for artificial light of any kind.

``We've done everything to build the place, and to tune the place, to make works of art look their best and to make it easy and refreshing for people to look at works of art,'' said museum director John Walsh. ``By easy I don't mean a brainless browse, but easy because many of the works are displayed in marvelous light.''

Though his layout flows freely, Meier lets you pause and ingest the atmosphere.

There are numerous public spaces, Renaissance-style piazzas in which human figures cluster and disperse, absorbed in intense conversations. A wisteria-colored steel trellis creates a whimsical splash. An abstracted reflecting pool slyly evokes the Roman splendor of the Malibu Getty's rectangular fish pond.

A ground-level ``family room'' lets young visitors work off steam between gallery strolls. The fabric-lined interiors of the decorative arts galleries, which have stirred so much critical chatter, soothe and complement rather than conflict. A rooftop garden, ablaze with birds of paradise, beckons to sufferers of sensory overload.

Rather than writing a classical symphony in marble, Meier has riffed out a jazz suite, subtle variations on a theme.

His building is about loosening up, not burning out, in the presence of high culture. It's about wandering outside and taking a deep gulp of ocean-swept air. Then maybe sipping some coffee and gazing across at Mount Baldy before you go take a crack at deciphering the finer allegorical points of Rembrandt's ``Abduction of Europa.''

Even amid the flurry of prestigious L.A. commissions by celebrity architects - the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall, Jose Rafael Moneo's plans for Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, I.M. Pei's proposals for a UCLA Medical Center expansion - Meier's Getty Center will stand as the unrivaled champ in scale and expense. Perhaps not since the '20s and '30s, when City Hall and Union Station were built, has Los Angles seen such a frenzy of public (or quasi-public) construction.

Now Los Angeles is once again attempting to proclaim its future through its buildings.

Like Dodger Stadium or the Hollywood sign, the Getty Center is intended not simply as a piece of construction but as a symbol, an advertisement, if you will, for the restless, overachieving metropolis below.

And while some Getty visitors will miss the charming clutter of the Malibu estate, others may be glad not to strain their necks while wedged into a narrow hallway, trying to absorb the riotous, frightening carnival that is James Ensor's ``Christ's Entry into Brussels, 1889.''

``You really create your own visit by the choices that you make,'' said museum staffer K. Quincy Houghton.

But, she added, ``I think if you want to be overwhelmed, you can do it to yourself quite easily.''

Come take a mind's-eye tour.

The facts

What: The Getty Center.

Where: Getty Center Drive, off Sepulveda Boulevard west of the 405 Freeway.

Hours: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday, Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

Admission: Free, but car parking is $5 and advance reservations are required if you plan on arriving by car. For reservations, call [phone]. A TDD line for the deaf and hearing impaired is available at [phone]. Information and assistance is available in Spanish and English.

How to get there: You do not need a reservation if you are traveling by public bus, taxi or bicicyle. Walk-in visitors are permitted, though parking on the surrounding streets is restricted. Both the MTA bus line (561) and Santa Monica bus line (14) stop at the front entrance along Sepulveda Boulevard.

CAPTION(S):

18 photos, 4 maps, box

PHOTO (1 -- color) Architect Richard Meier stands in front of one of the six buildings he designed for the $1 billion Getty Center in Brentwood.

Photo courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust

(2 -- 3) Paintings continue from the High Renaissance to the Baroque and Rococco periods. The walkway between the North and East pavilions offers a panoramic alcove where visitors can rest their eyes and feet.

``St. Bartholomew'' (detail), Rembrandt van Rijn, ca. 1661

``The Holy Family'' (detail) Nicolas Poussin, ca. 1650-1651

(4 -- 5 -- color) SOUTH PAVILION

Floor 1

Having outgrown its Malibu home, the decorative arts collection is now spread across 14 galleries. Objects include tapestries, tables, cabinets, clocks and four reconstructed paneled rooms.

``Cabinet on stand,'' Andre-Charles Boulle, ca. 1675-1680

``Bed'' Jacques Jean Baptiste Tilliard

(6 -- 7 -- color) Floor 2

Atop the east wing of the South pavilion, a park-like terrace offers vistas of the 405 Freeway below and the city beyond. A trellised path leads to the second floor of the west wing, populated by Venetian, Italian and English paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries.

(8) WEST PAVILION

Floor 1

Large holdings of pictures by Walker Evans, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray enhance the photography collections.

``Tears'' (detail), Man Ray, 1930-1933

(9 -- 10) Floor 2

These four galleries of 19th-century European paintings bring the Getty's collections to the brink of Modernism.

``Irises'' (detail), Vincent van Gogh, 1889

``Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889'' (detail), James Ensor, 1888

(11 -- 12 -- color) SOUTH PROMONTORY 

Accented by a cactus garden, this sun-swept spot looks south to Palos Verdes and, on smog-free days, to Catalina Island and the Pacific Ocean.

(13 -- color) ENTRANCE HALL

Offset by a long reflecting pool, this building aims to help visitors orient themselves and design their individual browsing intineraries, aided by an introductory film, computerized displays and CD-ROMs. The building also houses the museum's curatorial, exhibitions, and education departments, and a bookstore.

(14 -- 15) NORTH PAVILION

Rotating selections from the Getty's Medieval manuscript collection will be displayed in environment-controlled cases. In an adjoining room, bronze sculptures (below) are given special attention: Natural light, directed by beveled portholes, lends dramatic shading. Next door are Italian ceramics.

(16) These paintings encompass the Early to the High Renaissance, including significant works by Titian, Fra Bartolommeo and Pontormo.

``Portrait of Cosimo I de'Medici'' (detail), Pontormo, ca. 1537.

(17 -- 18) Drawings by Raphael, Michelangelo, Durer and Degas are among some 500 in these collections. Neighboring rooms hold 17th- and 18th-century sculpture.

``Nude Woman with a Snake,'' Rembrandt van Rijn, ca. 1637

``Self- portrait'' Edgar Degas, 1857-1858

MAP: (1) THE GETTY CENTER

Designed by architect Richard Meier, the six-building complex resembles a college campus perched on a 110-acre site in the Santa Monica Mountains. Besides the museum, it includes five affiliated institutes: the Conservation Institution, the Education Institute for the Arts, the Information Institute, the Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, and the Leadership Institute for Museum Management. The Getty Trust, residing at the campus' northern edge, is the umbrella entity that manages the endowment and oversees the entire Center. A 750,000-volume research library, a 450-seat multi-purpose auditorium, a full-service restaurant, and two cafes with indoor and outdoor seating round out the amenities.

(2) CENTRAL GARDENS

Shaped like an ancient Greek amphitheater, the central gardens designed by San Diego artist Robert Irwin form an ever-changing composition of color, sound and natural light. Altogether, the Getty gardens make up about three-quarters of the 24-acre campus. They include 8,000 native oaks and 1,800 other trees including eucalyptus, citrus and jacaranda.

(3) Entrance Hall

(4) Getty Center Drive

Box: The facts (see text)

Research: Reed Johnson and Bradford Mar

Graphics/Layout: Bradford Mar

Photos: David R. Crane

Artwork courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust