To call to mind the waters of the bay, the renovated San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) uses more than 700 uniquely shaped fiberglass reinforced polymer (FRP) panels on its exterior, resulting in a tall, white, and wavy building. To really capture the eye, silicate crystals have been embedded to reflect changing light.
The architecture firm Snøhetta designed a 10-story expansion to the SFMOMA. Along with the new façade, the museum will have 170,000 sf of new and renovated indoor and outdoor gallery space, which triples the previous amount. The galleries are intimate, flexible, and column-free, giving artists more freedom with which to work.
The building has two main entrances, an education center, two restaurants, a coffee shop, a light-filled atrium, a third floor terrace with a public living wall with more than 19,000 plants, and a renovated Phyllis Wattis Theater, which now has a 4K projection screen.
“Our design seeks to create an intimate experience, welcoming a diversity of visitors to the magnificent collection, and fostering a connection between the visitor and museum for years to come,” Craig Dykers, founding partner of Snøhetta and leader of the design team for SFMOMA, said in a statement. “All of the senses will be engaged as part of the experience. Wonderful day lit staircases lead visitors from floor to floor, the galleries create a comfortable viewing experience of the art, and terraces allow for moments of repose, to be reinvigorated by fresh air, sunlight and vistas of the city between galleries. The visitor should sense that the building is inspired by one of the great cities of the world, San Francisco.”
Interactive touch screens have been installed in the painting and sculpture galleries, and a new app gives visitors a guided audio tour through both the museum and the surrounding SoMa neighborhood.
The museum opens May 14. More than $610 million was raised for the project, which has covered construction costs, the endowment, and support for education, art commissioning and exhibition programs.
SFMOMA contains 33,000 works of architecture and design, painting, photography and sculpture. It also has the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, a private collection of contemporary art featuring pieces by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tony Cragg.
The museum was established in 1935. Swiss architect Mario Botta designed the museum’s current building, which opened in 1995. The Snøhetta expansion will be added onto it.
SFMOMA. Photo: Henrik Kam, courtesy SFMOMA. Click image to enlarge.
 (1999) at SFMOMA%3B photo © Henrik Kam%2C courtesy SFMOMA.jpg)
Helen and Charles Schwab Hall. Photo: Henrik Kam, courtesy SFMOMA. Click image to enlarge.
The Campaign for Art Contemporary exhibition. Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy SFMOMA. Click image to enlarge.
%2C formerly Man (1967)%3B photo © Henrik Kam%2C courtesy SFMOMA.jpg)
The exterior cladding and the living wall at the Pat and Bill Wilson Sculpture Terrace. Photo: Henrik Kam, courtesy SFMOMA. Click image to enlarge.
Related Stories
| Sep 12, 2011
Living Buildings: Are AEC Firms up to the Challenge?
Modular Architecture > You’ve done a LEED Gold or two, maybe even a LEED Platinum. But are you and your firm ready to take on the Living Building Challenge? Think twice before you say yes.
| Apr 13, 2011
Expanded Museum of the Moving Image provides a treat for the eyes
The expansion and renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., involved a complete redesign of its first floor and the construction of a three-story 47,000-sf addition.
| Apr 12, 2011
Entrance pavilion adds subtle style to Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
A $13 million gift from the Otis Booth Foundation is funding a new entrance pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. CO Architects, Los Angeles, is designing the frameless structure with an energy-efficient curtain wall, vertical suspension rods, and horizontal knife plates to make it as transparent as possible.
| Jan 21, 2011
Sustainable history center exhibits Fort Ticonderoga’s storied past
Fort Ticonderoga, in Ticonderoga, N.Y., along Lake Champlain, dates to 1755 and was the site of battles in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The new $20.8 million, 15,000-sf Deborah Clarke Mars Education Center pays homage to the French magasin du Roi (the King’s warehouse) at the fort.
| Jan 19, 2011
Industrial history museum gets new home in steel plant
The National Museum of Industrial History recently renovated the exterior of a 1913 steel plant in Bethlehem, Pa., to house its new 40,000-sf exhibition space. The museum chose VOA Associates, which is headquartered in Chicago, to complete the design for the exhibit’s interior. The exhibit, which has views of five historic blast furnaces, will feature artifacts from the Smithsonian Institution to illustrate early industrial America.
| Jan 19, 2011
Museum design integrates Greek history and architecture
Construction is under way in Chicago on the National Hellenic Museum, the nation’s first museum devoted to Greek history and culture. RTKL designed the 40,000-sf limestone and glass building to include such historic references as the covered walkway of classical architecture and the natural wood accents of Byzantine monasteries. The museum will include a research library and oral history center, plus a 3,600-sf rooftop terrace featuring three gardens. The project seeks LEED Silver.
| Nov 23, 2010
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library and museum, plus the Bush Institute, is aiming for LEED Platinum. The 226,565-sf center, located at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, was designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.
| Nov 2, 2010
Cypress Siding Helps Nature Center Look its Part
The Trinity River Audubon Center, which sits within a 6,000-acre forest just outside Dallas, utilizes sustainable materials that help the $12.5 million nature center fit its wooded setting and put it on a path to earning LEED Gold.
| Oct 13, 2010
Tower commemorates Lewis & Clark’s historic expedition
The $4.8 million Lewis and Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford, Ill., commemorates explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark at the point where their trek to the Pacific Ocean began—the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
