Acropolis now

Sunset, Jan, 1998 by Matthew Jaffe

As the Getty Center rose mysteriously on a hill high above perpetually clogged Sepulveda Pass, the Richard Meier-designed arts campus was a sitting duck.

Thirteen years in the making, with its $1-billion cost paid by the world's richest arts institution and a site that seemed deliberately removed from Los Angeles itself, the Getty made an easy mark for those inclined to take potshots at anything so grandiose, expensive, and unabashedly Establishment.

And for all of its incomparable high-culture attributes and Parthenon-like mien, the Getty could also be conveniently tossed in with that 1990s L.A. tradition of budget-busting landmarks.

Just look at it up there: it's Aaron Spelling's mansion, the Michael Ovitz buyout, and the Titanic (opening the same week as the Getty) all wrapped up in 37,000 tons of off-white travertine and ribbons of enameled aluminum.

Why not take a few shots? With a target so big - 110 acres of land and 1 million square feet of floor space, to be exact - how could you miss? There was just one nagging question that Getty detractors wanted answered:

So, when can I make a reservation?

It's been a long time since L.A. could point to something both big and good. Think about what the city has endured since Getty construction began in 1989: riots, earthquakes, the loss of two football teams, the collapse of the real estate market, fires, the Menendez brothers, drought, floods, a subway to nowhere, and, of course, Kato Kaelin.

Indeed, during the past decade, the sports chant "Beat L.A." became a reality. Major art museums opened or expanded in Seattle, San Francisco, and Phoenix. Denver got Coors Field and a new airport, Salt Lake City got the Olympics for 2002, and Las Vegas got Egypt, New York City, and Monte Carlo.

Okay, so the Getty is too Eurocentric, and its multibillion-dollar endowment has inflated prices in the art world. But from the city's perspective, there's no downside in having a worldclass arts facility, especially one that is so committed to community programs.

And seeing is believing.

MAKING THE PILGRIMAGE

There is a ritual aspect to visiting the Getty. Instead of simply driving up to the site, you must make a reservation to park your car before boarding a tram, which in five minutes carries you 3,960 feet to the campus. Unintentionally, it serves as a 1990s reference to the Angels Flight funicular railway downtown. It also proves that Angelenos really are perfectly willing to get out of their beloved cars and ride public transportation, assuming that Van Gogh's Irises and Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi are waiting at the end of the line.

Those are only two of the major works of art on permanent display in the 54 galleries of the J. Paul Getty Museum, which shares the campus with five cultural institutes and a grant program, all funded by the Getty Trust. Thanks to a system of computerized louvers, timed to deflect sunlight by adjusting to the angle of the sun, these and other works will be on display under natural light for the first time in the modern era.

On the Getty campus, the facility feels more a part of the city than it does from below, with a view that extends from Santa Catalina Island to snow-covered Mount Baldy. But it is the view of estates in the nearby hills to the west that provides the truest context for the facility. This is Los Angeles at its most Mediterranean.

With the Getty's overwhelming nod to modernism, its classicism is in no way as literal as the institution's original Roman-style villa at Malibu (scheduled to reopen in 2001 as a center for ancient art). Yet the new facility's classical allusions are impossible to miss. There is, of course, an Olympian perspective. And the cleft-cut travertine panels, mined from a quarry outside Rome, physically link the Getty to the very foundations of Western culture.

The rock's rough surface invites the touch of the hand, helping to make the facility a warm - at times, intimate - place to be. That said, there are moments when the Getty overwhelms, which is probably as it should be. After all, this is a place that was built with an eye to 200 years from now, when, its architects and patrons no doubt hope, the Getty will be regarded as an equal to the treasures it holds.

GETTING TO THE GETTY

* Where: West of 1-405 at Getty Center Dr. in Los Angeles.

* Hours: 11-7 Tue-Wed, 11-9 Thu-Fri, 10-6 Sat-Sun. Closed major holidays.

* Parking: $5; advance reservations required (310/440-7300). For a last-minute visit without parking reservations, take the 561 MTA bus or the 14 Santa Monica bus (both stop at the front entrance), call a cab (there's a taxi stop in the parking structure), pedal a bike, or ride in on a motorcycle.

COMPARATIVE COSTS

* The Getty Center: $1 billion

* New York-New York Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas: $460 million

* Titanic, the movie: $200-$300 million

* Titanic, the ship: $122 million in 1997 dollars

* Shaquille O'Neal's reported six-year contract with the L.A. Lakers: $120 million

* Michael Ovitz's severance package from Disney: $90 million