The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)’s 225,000-square-foot expansion, slated to open in 2016, will double the institution’s gallery and education space as well as enliven now-quiet side streets surrounding the dense urban site. Oslo, Norway–based architecture firm Snøhetta, which won the competition last year and is working in collaboration with local firm EHDD Architecture, has released a preliminary design for a slender volume tucked behind (and rising 50 feet above) the existing Mario Botta–designed building. It will run the full width of the city block. The design also calls for the creation of an 18-foot-wide pedestrian allée from one end of the new structure to Natoma Street (currently a dead-end alley that cuts through the middle of the site). “Just as the design of Mario Botta effectively invented the South of Market neighborhood in 1995, so too will the Snøhetta design open up new avenues for South of Market foot traffic, and attract visitors from four sides of the building,” says Neal Benezra, director of SFMOMA. “Our new museum will engage the city from all angles, and may be discovered anew from multiple perspectives.”
On The Boards
On the Boards
