SFMOMA to Debut Rooftop Garden this Spring
The garden adds 14,400 square feet of gallery space creating greater opportunity for large-scale scultpures.
Laurel Petriello -- Interior Design, 2/4/2009 12:00:00 AM
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is taking advantage of the Bay Area’s temperate weather by adding a new attraction. The museum, which will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2010, will debut a rooftop sculpture garden this year on Mother’s Day, May 10.
Following a competition held by SFMOMA, the museum selected the winning design: a collaboration between local architecture and interior firm Jensen Architects and Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Architecture. The $24-million rooftop garden will add 14,400 square feet to the museum, featuring a blend of exposed, open-air space and covered shelter. The additional square footage and outdoor space affords the museum greater opportunity to display large-scale sculptures, while contributing a serene, reflective environment for patrons to gather.
"The garden will act as an entirely new kind of gallery, adding a fresh dimension to the museum experience," said SFMOMA director Neal Benezra. "The grand scale of this remarkable space will enable us to exhibit large works—and even to extend and play off of the special exhibitions on view in our fifth-floor galleries."
The rooftop garden's inaugural exhibition features celebrated artists Robert Arneson, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, Juan Munoz, Barnett Newman, Joel Shapiro, Kiki Smith, and others. In celebration of the gallery’s grand opening, the museum will offer free admission to patrons on its May 10 launch.
All images Jensen Architects, rendering of SFMOMA Rooftop Garden, 2009; ©Jensen Architects.
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