San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Seven floors of modern and contemporary art behind Mario Botta's brick drum and a Snohetta expansion.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1935 as the San Francisco Museum of Art, making it one of the first American institutions devoted to twentieth-century work. For decades it occupied rooms in the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue. In 1995 it moved to a purpose-built home on Third Street in the South of Market district, designed by the Swiss architect Mario Botta. His brick-faced block is organised around a truncated cylinder of black and white stone that carries daylight down into a tall central atrium.
A much larger expansion designed by the Norwegian practice Snohetta opened in May 2016, adding galleries to the rear of the Botta building and roughly trebling the exhibition space. Its rippling white facade of fibre-reinforced polymer panels faces Howard Street, and a living wall planted with native species overlooks a free public sculpture terrace. The museum's holdings cover painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design and media arts, and include the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, shown across several floors under a long-term partnership agreement.
Highlights
- Mario Botta's striped central oculus and stepped atrium staircase
- Snohetta's rippling white east facade and free public sculpture terrace
- One of the largest photography collections of any American art museum
- The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection of post-war and contemporary art
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