Getting to the Getty

I realized at the outset that I wasn’t the first kid on the block to tour the new Getty Center, but I felt it necessary to go there anyhow.

Getting a preview of the monolith that sprawls over a Brentwood hilltop like a doge’s palace is the journalistic equivalent of feeling you had to sit in on the O.J. trial at least once.

Dominick Dunne, who became a kind of icon of the trial, probably preceded me at the Getty too, appearing alternately puckish and scornful as the cameras panned by, and properly thoughtful at the end.

But, unlike Dunne, the center is here to stay, reflecting the city in its various moods: a little stylish and a little bizarre, a little timeless and a little unique, a little of this and a little of that.

That’s probably not the ideal way to describe anything that costs $1 billion to build, but I’d have probably said the same about the pyramids: They’re kind of, you know, triangular and big, and I think there are kings or something buried underneath.

You’ll hear and read more of the Getty than you probably ever wanted to, so I will spare you many of the details of its history and construction, limited as I am to a pitiful spoonful of words.

I will say, however, that the center, which occupies 110 prime acres, is not just an art museum. It is also a place of learning and research, of culture and conservation, and a dazzling contribution to the L.A. skyline.

On a scale of one to 10, I give it nine wows.

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It was actually the idea of my wife, Cinelli, to lobby for the preview, since art is an essential part of her life. She has led me over the years like an old dog on a leash to galleries around the world, trying with limited success to scrub the scum of Oakland from my brain.

I like pretty pictures as well as the next guy, but my tastes run more toward paintings hung behind bars in saloons where pool is played and “Okie From Muskogee” is the dominant jukebox anthem.

Just before taking the tram up the hill to the Getty, Cinelli admonished me not to embarrass her by talking about any of those pictures. I therefore mostly limited my comments to a simple wow as we strolled through the art museum and the conservation labs and trod the glass walkway through the research library and the verandas past offices where the scholars will dwell.

I wowed the buildings to begin with, a composition of glass and steel and 16,000 tons of Italian stone that still bear the imprints of fossils thousands of years old.

I wowed the central garden from a terrace that looks past its streams and abundance of flowers to the gleaming Pacific in the distance.

I wowed computer-operated skylights timed to follow the sun, allowing in the proper light to glorify the Getty’s art. I wowed the Van Goghs, the Monets, the Renoirs and the Rembrandts. I wowed the red damask silk wall coverings, the French tapestries and the Louis XIV furnishings.

I even wowed a ladder until I learned it wasn’t a sculpture but the tool of a workman putting final touches on a towering wall.

“Hold the wows,” Cinelli whispered. “You’re losing control.”

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I haven’t wowed like this since the ‘60s, when everyone was wowing something, mostly because they were all stoned. The thing is, the Getty Center is like a temple to contemporary achievements rooted in antiquity, tapping the best from both. It rates wows.

There’s a view from every window and every terrace, encompassing L.A. from its towers to its hills to its urban sprawl to its freeways to its shoreline and to the garish hillside mansions where money talks and good taste walks.

Considering the panorama, however, one can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just another castle-on-a-hill wherein will dwell the cultural elite and remain forever out of reach of those on the periphery.

In a sense, this is a city in itself, as new as its design, as old as history, observing within its many disciplines both what is good and what is bad about the cultures we’ve created.

I am told that no one will be forgotten in the Getty’s quest to embrace all within the vastness of its plans. It will not be just a place for scholars or for art aficionados or for those to whom belonging is a holy mantra.

Walking through the center, we met Barry Munitz, who will give up his job as chancellor of the California State University system to become president of the Getty Trust in January, two weeks after the center officially opens.

Like a kid at a Disneyland for adults, Munitz listed the growing number of cultural assets that are beginning to define L.A. and added with unexpected exuberance, “What a place to be!”

He’s right, you know. Not just for culture but for a sense of oneness that is beginning to emerge and for the strength of diversity that will someday be our hallmark. We’re not Camelot. We never will be. We’re too big and noisy and flashy and angry to be mythical. But given enough time, we might end up actually liking each other.

I thought about that as I stood alone for a moment looking over the city from its newest mountain perch. And as I considered what we have and the incredible promise of who we could be I said very quietly to myself, wow.

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Al Martinez can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com