San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Modern art museum in South of Market, US.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art occupies a building on Third Street in the South of Market district. Mario Botta's 1995 design sets a stepped pale tower with vertical piers behind a broad rounded projection, whose large circular window of greenish glass ribs is framed by alternating light and dark stone bands. Below, a flat reddish-brown brick wall extends left and right, and three small figures stand near glass doors at the base.
Founded in 1935 by director Grace L. McCann Morley, the museum spent sixty years on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building in the Civic Center. Albert M. Bender's gift of 36 works, including Diego Rivera's The Flower Carrier, began the permanent collection. It moved to Mario Botta's building at 151 Third Street in 1995, and reopened on May 14, 2016 after a three-year Snøhetta expansion that more than doubled gallery space.
The collection features works by Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, and Jackson Pollock displayed across rotating exhibitions on multiple floors. Visitors can also enter a free public gallery on the ground floor, accessible without a ticket.
The ground floor gallery opens daily and can be entered for free, while access to upper floors requires admission tickets. Thursday evenings extend main exhibition hours until 8 PM, with other days closing at 5 PM.
The 1995 building was designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta, who came from Canton Ticino; it cost US$60 million. Its stepped tower and the large circular window of greenish glass set in bands of light and dark stone are the features to look for on Third Street. The Snøhetta expansion reopened on May 14, 2016.
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