The group of architects being invited to compete in SFMOMA’s proposed 100,000-square-foot expansion includes a mix of grand masters like Renzo Piano and Norman Foster as well as emerging stars like Norway’s Snohetta and London-based Tanzanian designer David Adjaye.
A dozen design firms are being looked at. Others include Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Steven Holl, and Mexican architect Enrique Norton, who is collaborating with Handel Associates on a mixed-use project at 706 Mission St. that will include new Mexican Museum.
A subcommittee of SFMOMA board members working on the selection process will hold preliminary interviews with the initial group and then whittle the list down to finalists, according to David Meckel, director of research and planning at California College of the Arts, who is advising the board on the selection process. Board members will then visit the offices and built work of the finalists.
“You have the luxury of time here,” said Meckel. “What the committee is doing is keeping an open mind and not assuming that people who have not built six museums don’t know what they are doing. I think this is in good hands. This is a deliberative process with people who are not under the gun. They are going to do the right thing.”
The only architect on the list who has designed a San Francisco project is Renzo Piano, who did the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Diller Scofidio + Renfo designed the new Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the redevelopment of Lincoln Center for the Arts in New York.
David Adjaye designed the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and recently beat out many of the architects on the SFMOMA list in a competition to design the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Snohetta has never designed a major museum, but is considered an emerging stararchitect based on a new opera house the firm did in Oslo and the Library of Alexandria in Egypt.
The New York-based Holl has designed nine museums, including the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles and art museums in Finland, Denmark, Kansas City, and Najing, China.
A dozen design firms are being looked at. Others include Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, Rem Koolhaas, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Steven Holl, and Mexican architect Enrique Norton, who is collaborating with Handel Associates on a mixed-use project at 706 Mission St. that will include new Mexican Museum.
A subcommittee of SFMOMA board members working on the selection process will hold preliminary interviews with the initial group and then whittle the list down to finalists, according to David Meckel, director of research and planning at California College of the Arts, who is advising the board on the selection process. Board members will then visit the offices and built work of the finalists.
“You have the luxury of time here,” said Meckel. “What the committee is doing is keeping an open mind and not assuming that people who have not built six museums don’t know what they are doing. I think this is in good hands. This is a deliberative process with people who are not under the gun. They are going to do the right thing.”
The only architect on the list who has designed a San Francisco project is Renzo Piano, who did the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Diller Scofidio + Renfo designed the new Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the redevelopment of Lincoln Center for the Arts in New York.
David Adjaye designed the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver and recently beat out many of the architects on the SFMOMA list in a competition to design the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Snohetta has never designed a major museum, but is considered an emerging stararchitect based on a new opera house the firm did in Oslo and the Library of Alexandria in Egypt.
The New York-based Holl has designed nine museums, including the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles and art museums in Finland, Denmark, Kansas City, and Najing, China.
