MUSEUM DESIGNED TO ENHANCE ART EXPERIENCE.

Byline: Elizabeth Cosin Daily News Staff Writer

The new J. Paul Getty Museum won't open for a little more than a year, but here's a preview of what visiting the state-of-the-art facility will be like:

The approach: Like the Getty villa in Malibu, the new museum will require parking reservations. However, the 1,200-space parking structure will have a much larger capacity than its smaller cousin, which has only 331 spaces. In addition, there will be 16 spaces for buses, where the villa has none.

Visitors will walk up to a bright, futuristic, landscaped plaza tram station at the base of the hill, some 200 feet below the buildings. A gently winding four-minute tram ride takes you up the hill, giving various glimpses of the view toward the east, before rising for the first look at the cleft-cut travertine stone as the tram passes the fire water tank clad with it. The ride ends at a vast piazza, at the center of which is the museum.

The museum features a wide staircase in front with a white concrete canopy that seems shaped almost like outstretched arms.

``In those four minutes, you can shed all that freeway anxiety,'' says museum director John Walsh. ``Then you come into the piazza and you are drawn into the body language of the (museum), sort of like arms open wide.''

The structure: The museum is housed in five two-story buildings that surround a central courtyard, interconnected by glass-enclosed or open-air walkways. Architect Richard Meier's idea was to gradually lead visitors through an indoor-outdoor experience so that as they progress through the exhibits, they are exposed to little ``teases'' of the grand view of Los Angeles from the building.

The piece de resistance is a spectacular observation deck on the upper level, which gives a stunning, majestic view of Los Angeles, from the Santa Monica Mountains to the San Gabriels, downtown and, on a clear day, as far San Pedro.

The lobby is a wide-open, glass-encased rotunda with a deep brown polished travertine marble floor, windows looking out toward the courtyard and a central spiral staircase. There will be an information desk, bookstore and two orientation theaters.

Rembrandt and friends: And then it's off to see the collections. The paintings will be displayed in 22 galleries on the upper floors. Below will be space for sculpture, photographs, manuscripts, drawings, French furniture and decorative arts. At the very end of the tour, a full circle from the first galleries, will be the last pavilion, which will house temporary exhibitions.

The painting galleries will house works by artists such as Van Gogh, Millet, Degas, Rubens, Van Dyke and Rembrandt. The Getty owns four Rembrandts, which will hang in one of three galleries of 17th-century Dutch paintings.

The painting galleries have high, cathedral-like ceilings that slope inward at the top, creating a ``void space,'' at the end of which are skylights so that the paintings can be viewed in natural light. The galleries will have oak floors and baseboards, and polished marble doorways. The wall color and surface will vary with the artistic period being displayed.

``These are quite remarkable,'' Walsh says. ``This gives you an idea of what the whole point of this place is. This is what we did this for. We wanted this museum to be, in essence, a series of beautiful galleries that would create a setting in which you felt like looking at the paintings.''

Open encounters: Visitors will be able to walk through the painting galleries on the upper level of the museum, covering each historical period in chronological order, which wasn't possible at the villa because of its confinements. Walsh stresses that the experience will be unlike most other museums. The rooms will be more open and airy, and the walkways and terraces between galleries and pavilions will give the visitor a chance to stop and rest or just admire the view.

``It is a large museum, much larger than the villa, of course,'' Walsh says. ``But it is, in an important way, much more intimate. Visitors will be able to move between exhibits easily, getting a break in between. It's not going to be an overwhelming experience, except in terms of the great things that are displayed here.''

Furniture and photographs: The other galleries will be equally impressive in design and function, although some are unable to use natural light sources because of the fragility of the works displayed.

The decorative arts rooms - already being installed - will be on the lower level. They will house furniture, wallpaper, mirrors, inlaid doors and other pieces invoking the styles of Louis XIV and his successors through the French Revolution, including a paneled Regence salon from 1710 and a neoclassical salon from 1788 that have never before been displayed. The 13 rooms have been designed by New York artist Thierry Despont in collaboration with Meier.

In addition, there will be several photographic galleries displaying the Getty's vast collection of photographs and, of course, space for the Getty's collection of manuscripts and sculptures, much of which has been in storage for lack of exhibit space.

Four temporary galleries will house rotating exhibits, most on loan from other sources. Here, the museum will be able to mount various exhibits, including some from the 20th century, a period which, except for the photographic collection, the Getty Trust does not collect. Planned for 1999 is a major exhibition of Renaissance painter Dosso Dossi.

The masterpieces: Finally, the new museum will be designed especially to display the showpiece works of the Getty's expanding collection of masterpieces.

Among them will be a special wall for James Ensor's ``Christ's Entry Into Brussels, 1889,'' which is roughly 8 feet high and 14 feet long and now sits in a corridor in the Getty villa, where the effect of the large painting is diminished in part because the viewer can't stand back far enough to appreciate it.

``The Ensor will hang at the end of the largest gallery in the West Pavilion, with other impressionist and post-impressionist pictures,'' Walsh says. ``(It will be) the climax and virtually the last chronologically of the paintings collection.''

Another important work in the Getty collection is Pontormo's ``Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici,'' a rare and wonderful example of mannerist portraiture, which will hang in one of two medium-size galleries for large works of the Italian Renaissance.

Exhibit space also has been designed specifically for Van Gogh's ``Irises,'' as well as Maurice Quentin de La Tour's massive pastel ``Portrait of Gabriel Bernard de Rieux,'' which weighs close to a ton and will be on the display in the South Pavilion with other large works of art on paper.

Talk about a project leaving no stone unturned ...

Roughly 1.2 million square feet of cleft-cut Italian travertine stone will be used on the site once it is completed.

The stone comes from Tivoli, Italy, outside of Rome and is typically cut by hand and polished to a smooth marble _ the kind used in bank lobbies. Because of the quantity needed for the Getty Center, architect Richard Meier came up with a new tool so they could cut more pieces faster. Basically, they use a guillotinelike cutting tool that uses extreme force not to cut the stone, but split it.

Although polished examples of the travertine exist elsewhere on the site (on the museum lobby floor for example), the stone on the outside of the building is rough-cut, and you can see fossil remains in it. The stone is cut in two sizes: 30-inch square pieces that average 3 1/2 inches in thickness and weigh about 250 pounds each, and half squares, which are 15 inches by 30 inches, about 2 1/2 inches thick and weigh from 115 pounds to 120 pounds.

Stone hedge: Because of the stones' weight, and to guard against earthquake damage, the stones are lifted into place with cranes and bolted on with four stainless-steel angles, two on top and two at the bottom of each square, with pegs on each end. The angles hold the gravity weight of the stone and the pegs retain the space in between so they don't slip in the event of an earthquake.

Water, water: On the side, skillfully integrated into the site by Meier, is a million-gallon water storage tank and helipad for fire helicopters to land and collect water to fight brush fires. It clad with the travertine stones, and it has a grassy landing area. The water tank, which is divided into six sections, is 100 feet long, 88 feet wide and 18 feet deep. Although the water is available should there be a fire at the Getty Center, it is meant for use all over Los Angeles County.

Museum on the hill: The entire Getty Center campus is located on a 110-acre site, the spine of which runs north to south roughly along the lines of the San Diego Freeway (405). At the top of the hill, where the main buildings are located, two ridges branch out, forming a ``Y,'' the angle of which is 22.5 degrees, exactly the same as the freeway below, and it turns away from Los Angeles through the Sepulveda Pass toward the San Fernando Valley.

Building up: The Getty Center eventually will consist of six low-lying buildings in a 24-acre campus atmosphere, three-quarters of which will be landscaped gardens, including the five-acre, 134,000 central garden designed by California artist Robert Irwin. The buildings, which were designed by Meier, will total 945,000 square feet of space (505,000 square feet for program areas and 440,000 square feet for food service, storage, maintenance, mechanical equipment and service areas), excluding entrance and parking facilities (there are two major garages; one at the top and a seven-story public parking structure at the foot of the hill).

Institutional knowledge: The Getty Trust encompasses five major institutes, the grant program and the J. Paul Getty Museums (the original in Malibu and the new one scheduled to open in October 1997). The Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities will have its own building; the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Education Institute for the Arts and the Getty Grant Program will share another building; and another building will house the Getty Information Institute and the Getty Trust administrative offices. There will be a free-standing, 450-seat auditorium, while yet another building will house a restaurant and cafe.

In the beginning: The Getty Trust dates back to 1953, when oil magnate J. Paul Getty established a small museum of Greek and Roman antiquities, 18th-century French furniture and European paintings at his home in Malibu and later built the Roman-style villa, which was built in 1974. The Trust funded the center with a portion of its $3.9 billion endowment.

It's free: Admission to the museum will remain free, although the Getty expects to charge a nominal fee for parking, as yet undetermined. It will be open six days a week and two evenings until 9 p.m.

Let there be light: Meier designed the innovative museum galleries to have a constant daylight exposure (minus the rays that are harmful to the paintings). A computerized system will operate adjustable louvers that will be regulated by sensors that are timed by the sun's movement.

Shaking out: Meier designed the Getty Center not only to fit in with the surrounding landscape, but for the real possibility that it will experience an earthquake. The architect placed seismic joints thoughout the site, which are made of two 12-inch thick concrete walls. Between the walls is four inches of foam. The joints create a separation between the buildings so that in the event of an earthquake, the buildings will shake independently and not knock up against each other.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: The new J. Paul Getty Museum, still under const ruction, is designed to provide spectacular views of both art and the surrounding landscape.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News

Box: Talk about a project leaving no stone unturned ... (See Text)