One museum becomes two

The new SFMoMA is just one month old and has generated an unstoppable flow of criticism, comments and strong opinions. Be the debate an academic or “happy hour” one, it demands, consideration.

Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Passing through the new and old building both, there are clearly two levels of perception, equal to two schools of thought.
This is not simply due to the predictable dichotomy between the two buildings, when they originated and their architects. There is an objective – purely physical and immanent – dimension to executing the spaces and therefore the art. Then, there is the dimension of the imagery that accompanies you at every step, on the meaning, ethical and non-, of the new architecture, and its intended message. The material and the immaterial, two aspects consistently present and entwined in the creation of a work, here break free from each other and pursue different routes. On the one hand, you have the physically tangible, that which will remain unchanged over time; on the other, there is the intangible image that each one of us will have received from that physicality and the ensuing flood of opinions, destructive criticism, enthusiasm and emotion that will probably divide the history of the new San Francisco Museum di Modern Art into cycles. The tangible-intangible effect will trigger a democratic “love it or hate it” reaction but we must speak of the architecture.   
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Mario Botta’s building opened in 1995 to low-profile appreciation; it was not very popular even back then. Set midway between the austere and the authoritative, indeed almost authoritarian in form, the “old” SFMoMA has never been a particularly convincing building, basically not the friendliest of presences. It was inserted sleepily into SoMa, the central South of Market neighbourhood, among other sleepy buildings such as the Yerba Buena gardens and the surrounding buildings. However, its strong identity was manifest from the very start, the icon of a whole district and the symbol of a specific time in the history of architecture, there on the West Coast and even here in Old Europe.
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016, terrace
The competition request was to triple the spaces for new galleries and to create them wherever possible, given the minimal footprint available on the ground. The impact made by the new building at first sight was therefore decided by contingent factors: the volume had to be developed vertically. It rises ten storeys on a narrow site that, to the rear, runs the whole length of the existing building, hooked onto five storeys of it and towering over it with another five. The site was both the inspiration and constriction of what was to be.
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016, lateral entrance
Once the height had been decided, the approach to the first and crucial design action dictated the choice of battlefield for everything else: the new building was to contrast with the old one, acting as a generational counterpoint. From then on it was all flowing water (architecture). One, urban, image of the new SFMoMA stands out from all else and will always be the logo of the future museum: the sculptural architecture (architectural sculpture?) of the white cloud. The organic form is squeezed, stretched and distorted where necessary. The building with a corrugated skin of horizontal waves is a mass that seems to swell up when the wind blows. As was, in the past, decided for the building which now has a Siamese twin, this also appears the supreme choice, with which we may or may not agree, of an assertive architectural persona keen to stand out or, more likely, is hinting at a turning point, a permanent change of direction for the city’s image.
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
On first approach, you instinctively compare and contrast the new and old buildings, seeking differences or what is complementary and trying to grasp how they come together and dialogue. Actually, they are a hybrid. Was this hybrid state triggered by the new or the old? Is this the crux of the design? The question remains unanswered. Over there is a profusion of pure white panels; over here are red brick walls displaying an attention paid to every detail. Over there is something that resembles a toy, in cheap polystyrene, over here the dear, good old architectural thought, present in all its learned gravity. Some believe that saving the old was a way of killing it forever. At times, the two buildings seem to suffer one because of the other, suggesting that the only possible solution was the drastic option of demolition and reconstruction. Save the old from awkward comparisons and allow its historic memory to be honoured. Save the new from the same risks and launch the museum’s new history into the future.
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016, terrace
The main entrance to the SFMoMA is still through the pre-existing building but Snøhetta has added a side one of a twin external/internal nature. An outside flight of steps leads straight to the mezzanine, joining up with the first terrace in a highly successful urban effect. Use the street entrance and you find yourself immediately inside, close to one of the loveliest works displayed in the museum, Richard Serra’s round maze. The dual entrance has paradoxically muddled the routes and relationships between the two buildings instead of improving performance. Leaving aside the cynical comments of those who think the street entrance is more like the slick lobby of an elegant office building than a museum entrance, from there you venture off in what are not really clear directions only to come, not easily, to the ticket area. The same problem is experienced through the old entrance. The Rationalist staircase was originally a focal point, geometrically centred in the cone of light formed by a large round skylight. Now, the new staircase, light and at an angle, seems tasked with the role of attractive design object. That is why it is used and not because where it is going is obvious. The hybrid sensation stems from that missing dialogue and the fact that the two buildings do not identify as one precisely at the point of contact, where the new concept has put the foot into the old one, depriving it of its greatest Post Modern symbol.  
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
The most satisfying feature of the entire (new) architectural experience as you pass through the buildings lies in the spectacular views of the city offered at several levels. Narrows views, slanted ones between the nearby buildings, vistas on high with various backdrops and a close encounter with the great white Art Deco skyscraper next-door all bring an unexpected tempo to the visit. The stepped routes on the long side of the building are one of the most captivating architectural compositions on the contemporary museum architecture scene. The possibility of catching sight of the ramps from one level to the next is resolved with surprise glazing, producing an unsettling illusory effect. The inside-outside role of the objects displayed in the rooms, from the art to the city, creates an actual urban space in which to seek your own point of view, stop and look. This occurs on the first terrace, squeezed between high walls and accessed from the external side steps, like a public square. It happens again on the third-floor terrace, which is almost metaphysical with nothing but two figurative sculptures acting as your mirror as they gaze out, also perplexed. It is Minimalism made with nothing and white, yet it is of the great Expressionist school. It also occurs on the intermediary terrace where the restaurant is. This provides a counterpoint to the linear first ones by re-proposing on high the quadrangular space of the square, almost Mediterranean-like.
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Image, premises and interesting design choices of an extremely exploratory nature honour the consistently vibrant architectural research of the group captained by Craig Dyckers. Snøhetta has accustomed us to oneiric twists of the highest worth in the tangible world and has convinced us that it is possible to construct material poetry, pass through it and live it as part of our cities. The Alexandria Library and the Oslo Opera House contain a lofty thought that becomes reality as occurs when the psychedelic music of Sigur Ròs becomes spiritual contact with earth, fire and ice together in dawn concerts high up in the Icelandic countryside. The sound, the architecture that emerges from the San Francisco project interprets spaces and rhythms with a typically Nordic sensitivity and taste, something that seems dictated more instinctively than practically and functionally. We must, for this reason, explain the doubts and perplexities, also part of the project, that arise naturally in the design of the new SFMoMA.
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016
Snøhetta, SFMoMA, 2016

The genesis of this work will remain unique for many reasons, the most important being that it will always couple the name of Snøhetta with that of Mario Botta and the contemporary architecture of constructing sculpturally with the emotions with the canons of Post Modern classicism. A granitic Alpine personality and a sunny Nordic one. The SFMoMA will always be this and can never be read without the dichotomy from which it originated.

The fact remains that San Francisco is experiencing a period of great urban reassertion and needs to let people get on with it and allow architecture to express itself and build the city a new identity. To achieve this, it allows (architecture) to surprise, not necessarily be popular and sometimes even to be strange – but always stimulating. The new SFMoMA climbs onto the roofs and shouts out its sensational identity, not wanting to be dependent on anyone.

Perhaps the real legacy Snøhetta has delivered to San Francisco lies in the debate started on art, the city and the role of architecture.

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