Snøhetta Breaks Ground on SFMOMA

The San Francisco institution’s last hurrah before a three-year construction closure will include four days of free admission before the museum takes to the streets.

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November 2011 rendering showing the new SFMOMA addition from the east.

Courtesy Snøhetta and MIR

November 2011 rendering showing the new SFMOMA addition from the east.


This morning, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will break ground on its 225,000-square-foot expansion, designed by New York- and Oslo-based firm Snøhetta with local architect EHDD following a 2010 competition win. As ARCHITECT reported in February, the addition will double SFMOMA’s spaces for galleries and education, including a ground-level, public gallery visible from the street through 25-foot-tall glass walls.

In addition to the ceremonial groundbreaking led by San Francisco mayor Edwin M. Lee and Snøhetta principal Craig Dykers, AIA, the museum will also debut an augmented reality app that allows visitors to explore a digital version of the future building. The ceremony will also mark the start of four days of free admission to the museum before it closes for construction on Sunday, June 2. During the build-out, the museum has plans for several exhibitions in alternate locations around the Bay Area.

SFMOMA is scheduled to reopen in 2016, and will target LEED Gold certification.

For more details and the latest renderings of SFMOMA, visit ARCHITECT’s Project Gallery.

A virtual tour of the SFMOMA Expansion is available on SFMOMA’s website.

About the Author

Deane Madsen

Deane Madsen, Assoc. AIA, LEED Green Associate, is the former associate design editor for ARCHITECT, and still covers architecture and design in Washington, D.C. He earned his M.Arch. at UCLA's Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Follow Deane on Twitter at @deane_madsen.

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