Today, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) unveiled the preliminary design for its expansion. Developed by architectural firm Snøhetta in collaboration with SFMOMA and EHDD of San Francisco, the over 225,000-square-foot building will run contiguously along the back of the current museum and extend from Howard to Minna streets. The idea is to integrate the two structures without undue disruption of the existing urban landscape.
The new building will create an additional entrance off Howard Street, featuring a mid-block, open-air, 18-foot wide pedestrian promenade. The Howard Street facade will also feature a large, street-level gallery enclosed in glass on three sides, providing views of both the art in the galleries and the new public spaces.
At this time, the museum is also exploring the creation of a number of outdoor terraces, including one on top of its current building. Picture a hanging gardens of Babylon effect - but without all the greenery. The Snøhetta building will rise fifty feet higher than the Botta building, and its roofline will be sculpted to frame the skyline of the buildings beyond it to the east when viewed from Yerba Buena Gardens.
On Howard Street, the glass-enclosed gallery and pedestrian promenade will be located on a site currently occupied by Fire House 1 and its neighbor at 670 Howard Street. SFMOMA is designing, financing, and constructing a new, replacement fire station on nearby Folsom Street, representing a gift to the city of more than $10 million, that will provide the Fire Department with a state-of-the-art facility that will enhance emergency response time.
The design of the interior spaces and integration of the two buildings will be unveiled at the end of this year. The building is scheduled to be completed by 2012.
This is the first major cultural building in the United States for the firm, which was founded in Norway in 1989. It also has offices in New York, where it is the architect for the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion at the World Trade Center site.
Comments