M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
- Architect
- Herzog & de Meuron
- Year
- 1895
- City
- San Francisco, CA
The de Young Museum opened in 1895 inside the Egyptian Revival Fine Arts Building left over from the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, named for San Francisco newspaperman M. H. de Young. It is now part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, alongside the Legion of Honor, in a building by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog & de Meuron. In 2023 it drew 999,645 visitors, ranking 22nd among U.S. museums.
the building
Surviving the 1906 quake. The original Egyptian Revival exposition building was badly damaged in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, closing for a year and a half before it reopened in November 1907.
Herzog & de Meuron rebuild. As the museum's collections outgrew the exposition-era structure, the Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron was brought in to design its replacement.
the style
The museum began in an Egyptian Revival building from the 1894 Midwinter Exposition; the current structure by Herzog & de Meuron replaced it entirely, trading exposition-era revivalism for contemporary museum design.
the architect
Herzog & de Meuron, the Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss firm, designed the museum's current building.
significance
The de Young is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; in 2023 it was the 22nd most-visited museum in the U.S., and in 2024 the combined de Young and Legion of Honor ranked 15th among U.S. art museums in The Washington Post's survey.
nearby
- California Academy of Sciences building
- Conservatory of Flowers
- Park View Hotel
- Congregation Emanu-El
- John Spencer House
- Roos House