Archinect - News

SFMOMA acquires Nakagin Capsule Tower pod

2023-06-13T19:37:00-04:00

A unique piece of architectural history is headed to America following the purchase of a remaining Nakagin Capsule Tower pod by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

The LA Times’ Carolina A. Miranda was first to report on the museum’s acquisition last week, which she said will join examples from fellow adherent to Metabolist architecture Fumihiko Maki and photographer Noritaka Minami (who documented his life inside the tower from 2010 to 2021) in the museum’s collection.

The A1302 capsule is one of just 23 preserved through the Tatsuyuki Maeda-led Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project and was personally owned by the building's architect Kisho Kurokawa himself, before his death in 2007.

Earlier on Archinect: Nakagin Capsule Tower capsules see new life following building's demolition in 2022

"It’s so rare to collect a 1-to-1 scale piece of architecture. It can fit inside, outside, and that’s phenomenal for us," the museum's architecture curator, Jennife...

Designs for outer space at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

2019-08-01T19:31:00-04:00

Fifty years since the first footsteps on the Moon, the exploration of the cosmos remains irresistible, and the ambition to establish commercial space travel and planetary settlements continues to capture the imagination. Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space celebrates the visionary ideas and ingenious solutions from architects, artists, and designers who dared to imagine life far out among the stars.

Entitled Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space, SFMOMA's exhibition celebrating the "booming space industry," will be open from July 20, 2019 to January 20, 2020. "Extraterrestrial conditions amplify the challenge to design for space travel, and new research and technologies are making what was once science fiction a reality," the museum writes. The exhibition will explore the work of artists and architects and how their ideas fit into "our cosmic quest."

Bureau Spectacular's installation to be exhibited at SFMOMA

2017-02-02T13:45:00-05:00

Not content to be merely groundbreaking, Bureau Spectacular's imaginative work is increasingly becoming prestigious. The SFMOMA will display "insideoutsidebetweenbeyond," a large-scale installation the museum specifically invited Bureau Spectacular to design, from February 11th through August 13, 2017.

As Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design at SFMOMA explains, "Led by Jimenez Lai, the Los Angeles–based studio considers architecture to be a medium capable of rewriting sociological narratives. In this view, architecture is not solely functional; informed by client input and civic policy, buildings also reveal societal values. Noting the banality of developed cities worldwide, Lai suggests that boxy skyscrapers are the result of a drive for economic efficiency. In their place, Bureau Spectacular proposes an architecture that reflects a balanced democracy of creative individuals."

Editor's Picks #446

2016-05-23T09:19:00-04:00

Robert Urquhart spoke with curators Jack Self, Shumi Bose and Finn Williams, previewing their British Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Biennale.

As they explained;

"We’re interested in the influence of bureaucratic apparatus like the Terms & Conditions of Airbnb, the semantics of a mortgage, or the lifespan of product warranties, on the design of the home. But rather than seeing these as constraints, we want to show these as fields where architecture can expand its agency."

Plus, Julia Ingalls h ad a chance to visit Snøhetta's expanded SFMOMA. Her conclusion, that it "elegantly achieves its stated goals of being accessible and welcoming to all, if not necessarily being a stunning piece of architecture in its own right." LiMX liked what he read "Good review, not the boring contrarianism I've read elsewhere."

News
In late April the Vanna Venturi House, was sold after more than nine months on the open market. In response quondam…, Orhan Ayyüce and others, explored whether a building as "volumi...

Archinect's critical round-up of Snøhetta's SFMOMA addition

2016-05-04T13:19:00-04:00

While not open to the public until May 14, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has officially unveiled its completed redesign to the press: a massive, iceberg-like addition by Snøhetta, conjoined to the original Mario Botta pomo building.

The redesign is a boon to exhibition space in the museum: Snøhetta's 235,000-square-foot expansion more than doubles the space of the original building, and allows for "art-filled free-to-the-public galleries". In total, that amounts to more gallery space than what the eastern-coast's MoMA has. While much of Botta's original building was left more or less the same, the staircase in the entrance atrium was adapted by Snøhetta to adjust to a projected increase in visitor traffic.

Julia Ingalls attended the press preview; look for her take later this week. Meanwhile, here's what the other critics are saying:

Christopher Hawthorne for the Los Angeles Times is at once pleased by Snøhetta's design and disappointed by the new museum writ large:

Around back...

A peak into Snøhetta's massive new SFMOMA

2015-10-22T13:39:00-04:00

In the Bay Area, SFMOMA is now the largest art museum, surpassing the Oakland Museum of California at 110,000 feet. In the city, the de Young Museum is second at 84,000 square feet. Statewide, its exhibition space is 50 percent larger than the Getty Center in Los Angeles and is second only to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian of the West, which boasts 230,000 feet.

While the museum won't open to the public until May 14, 2016, the SFMOMA has allowed a photographer from The San Francisco Chronicle inside and out to survey its newsworthily-expansive Snøhetta-designed spaces:

San Francisco Museum Nears $610 Million Fundraising Goal

2014-06-24T14:26:00-04:00

About $570 million, or 94 percent, has been raised by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for its 235,000-square-foot (21,800-square-meter) expansion and to add $245 million to the museum’s endowment. The $305 million wing designed by the Snohetta architecture firm is rising behind SFMOMA’s current home, opened two decades ago in the technology-heavy South of Market area, or SOMA.

Lebbeus Woods: The Architect Who Dared to Ask ‘What If?’

2013-02-16T18:37:00-05:00

San Francisco Project: Inhabiting the Quake, Quake City, 1995; graphite and pastel on paper; 14.5 inches by 23 inches by 0.75 inches; Collection SFMOMA.

Lewis Wallace previews the new exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Lebbeus Woods, Architect. While not a full retrospective of Woods’ career, the exhibit shows off three decades of his work in the form of drawings, paintings, models and sketchbooks filled with bold ideas, raw concepts and cryptic inscriptions.

SFMOMA posts a video about their upcoming Sn

2013-01-10T20:39:00-05:00

We're building our future, with a new expansion to open in early 2016. Open, engaging, welcoming, and embracing, the expansion represents a transformative vision of the museum, offering new opportunities for diverse audiences to experience modern and contemporary art. Hear about what's in store for SFMOMA and our audiences in 2016 and beyond from Director Neal Benezra, artist Richard Serra, and other members of the SFMOMA community.

SFMOMA: Reimagining the Civic

2012-12-03T11:47:00-05:00

RE-IMAGINING THE CIVIC
A profound breakdown in trust between publics and institutions is one of the defining hallmarks of our time. Cultural organizations can respond to this crisis by acting as mediating agencies and imaginatively bridging and building interfaces across divided constituencies. In making public this graphic analysis of our internal thinking process at Slought, we offer suggestions as to how small and large organizations alike can respond to this challenge.

In our activities at Slought, we continually reflect on and draw insight from the variety of economies employed in our communities, ranging from the formal to the informal. We also foreground conversation and consensus as methodologies of engagement, as well as collaboration and partnership across cultural, intellectual, and advocacy-based communities. These strategies have enabled us and our collaborators to survive and flourish over these past 10 years, despite the socio-political tenor of many of our proje...

Editor's Picks #242

2011-12-18T12:32:07-05:00

Snøhetta has released a virtual tour exploring their proposed expansion/redesign for SFMOMA. SUVERK noted that he spends a lot of time walking through that hood and argues "the new Snohetta design is very stealthy...The surrounding towers St. Regis(SOM) and the W Hotel(Hornberger and Worstell) dominate the skyline to the point that one would not right away notice the SFMOMA expansion- (which is the same size as Botta's).- It will sneak up on you and then you will be curious -WTF is that?

Archinect’s most recent ShowCase feature highlights VLP Chapel in Grand-Bigard, by tcct, a firm based in Bruges, Belgium.

News

Portuguese collective DOSE sent us images and a fascinating time-lapse video of their project BLUETUBE BAR, a temporary bar to operate at the annual academic festival in Oporto, Portugal, Queima das Fitas.

Wallpaper brought together five young firms of note at the V&A+RIBA Architecture Gallery in London and asked them to reveal how they got started. Apurimac reacting to the images of one of the firms ACME’s porposal for Universidad Distrital, in Bogotá commented "Those poor bricks in that Columbia project... Its like they "asked the brick what it wanted to be" and it said ‘raped’."

Snøhetta has released a virtual tour exploring their proposed expansion/redesign for SFMOMA. SUVERK noted that he spends a lot of time walking through that hood and argues that "the new Snohetta design is very stealthy - kind of a you don't know it's there until it's in ...

SFMOMA Expansion

2011-12-12T19:09:00-05:00

The architects' sketches for SFMOMA's new expansion reveal a transformative design for the museum, the neighborhood, and the city. "Our design for SFMOMA responds to the unique demands of this site, as well as the physical and urban terrain of San Francisco," says Snøhetta principal architect Craig Dykers. "The scale of the building meets the museum's mission, and our approach to the neighborhood strengthens SFMOMA's engagement with the city.

An Imposing Museum Turns Warm and Fuzzy

2011-11-30T21:04:50-05:00

Is it a building filled with art with some people in it, or a building filled with people with some art in it? There needs to be enough social space to make people feel comfortable in what can be an austere environment, the white box. You shouldn’t feel like you need to be quiet in the public spaces.

Snøhetta Defends Its Controversial Design For SF's Museum of Modern Art

2011-06-02T16:48:18-04:00

In San Francisco, you feel like you’re always leaving and going, you go up and down, up and down. You’re always provided with a new view of the city. So we felt we could use that idea to allow people to experience the museum and the city in different ways. We’re creating a lot of variation within the design. So even though the building is relatively compact, you’ll always be able to step into a space and look down or across or up into another space.

First look at SFMOMA's new wing

2011-05-28T16:14:03-04:00

Designed by busy Norwegian firm Snøhetta, which is also at work on the museum at New York's ground zero, the addition will slip a massive, 335-foot-long cruise ship of a structure behind the museum's existing building, which was designed by Mario Botta and opened in 1995. The main entry to Botta's museum, along Third Street, will remain, but a second gateway to the museum will open up along Howard Street.