San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Architects
- Mario Botta Snøhetta
- Year
- 1935
- Style
- Postmodernism
- City
- San Francisco, CA
SFMOMA opened in 1935 in the Veterans Building as the first West Coast museum devoted solely to twentieth-century art. It moved into its current Mario Botta-designed home in SoMa in 1995, then reopened in 2016 after a three-year, Snøhetta-designed expansion that more than doubled its gallery space and nearly sextupled its public space.
the building
Botta's cylindrical skylight. Mario Botta's 1995 building is capped by a distinctive striped, cylindrical skylight, an oculus that has become the museum's signature silhouette on the SoMa street.
Snøhetta's expansion. Snøhetta's 2016 addition doubled the museum's gallery space and multiplied its public space nearly sixfold, without displacing Botta's original tower and skylight.
the style
Postmodernism (c. 1975–1995): Classical bits quoted at the wrong scale in bold colors: columns, pediments, and keystones with a wink.
More on Postmodernismsignificance
SFMOMA holds over 33,000 works across 170,000 square feet, making it one of the largest museums in the United States and one of the largest in the world dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The Washington Post ranked it 14th among U.S. art museums in 2024.
nearby
- 140 New Montgomery
- Rialto Building
- Contemporary Jewish Museum
- Building at 735 Market Street
- Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences
- Neiman-Marcus Department Store