The planned Central
Court.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco,
having long outgrown its home of thirty-five years in Golden Gate
Park, will open its new, expanded facility at the city's Civic
Center on Thursday, January 23, 2003, at 10 am.
The date coincides with the celebration of the Lunar New Year,
the traditional start of the year for many Asian cultures and an
auspicious season symbolizing new beginnings. The grand opening
culminates an eight-year, $160.5 million public/private
partnership to create a new home for the museum and its
world-renowned collection of Asian art through the rehabilitation
and adaptive reuse of the city's former Main Library, a 1917
Beaux Arts-style building.
Architect Gae Aulenti, best known for converting a derelict Paris
train station into the celebrated Musée d'Orsay, conceived the
transformation of the historic building into the new Asian Art
Museum. The museum's new quarters-featuring nearly forty thousand
square feet of gallery display space as well as expanded
educational services, state-of-the-art storage and conservation
facilities, and more-will allow the museum to better fulfill its
mission of leading a diverse global audience in discovering the
unique material, aesthetic, and intellectual achievements of
Asian art and culture.
"We are delighted to once again share the Asian Art Museum with
the citizens of the Bay Area and the world," said museum director
Emily Sano. "Our new facilities will allow us to expand our
offerings to provide a truly unique experience. Not only will we
have the treasured collection our constituents have always loved,
but we will have more of it on view. In addition, we will provide
new interpretative programs to enhance the visitor's connection
to the art."
"San Francisco is excited to welcome the new Asian Art Museum to
the revitalized Civic Center neighborhood, the cultural,
political, and social heart of this city," said San Francisco
Mayor Willie L. Brown. "The museum is a dynamic new element and
represents another jewel in Civic Center's crown."
To date, more than $151 million of the $160.5 million capital
campaign has been secured, including $52 million in public bonds.
The single largest private gift, $15 million, came from
Korean-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur Chong-Moon Lee. In
recognition of Mr. Lee's generosity, the new building will be
officially recognized as the Asian Art Museum-Chong-Moon Lee
Center for Asian Art and Culture.
Architect Gae Aulenti's effort not only revitalizes the historic
building-originally designed by George Kelham-but also creates an
exciting new space in which to showcase the museum's renowned
collection. Seismically retrofitted to withstand an 8.3
earthquake, the building will feature many of the distinctive
elements of the original structure while incorporating several
innovative attributes to facilitate the building's new purpose as
a museum.
The rehabilitation of the structure leaves its Beaux Arts
exterior essentially unchanged. The conceptual design retains the
historically significant architectural spaces and details of the
interior, including the entrance, majestic staircase, loggia and
grand hall, vaulted ceilings, travertine and faux travertine
finishes, skylights, inscriptions, molded plasters, light
fixtures and stone floors-all returned to their original luster.
Aulenti's design comes into full view on the museum's ground
floor. The historic entrance opens onto a newly created interior
court-an expansive public space brightened by natural light from
two banks of skylights-which serves as the museum's lobby and
primary gathering spot for tours, school groups, and other
visitors. This floor will also house eighty-five hundred square
feet of special exhibition galleries, three multipurpose
classrooms, and a drop-in Education Resource Center to support
the museum's highly regarded public programs. A striking
two-story escalator, which extends 115 feet from the rear of the
court through a glass-enclosed curtain along the outside of the
building, acts as a dramatic means for escorting visitors to the
galleries on the second and third levels. The ground floor also
incorporates visitor amenities such as the 1,700-square-foot
museum store and a café featuring an outdoor dining terrace
overlooking the Fulton Street mall.
The second and third floors will house nearly twenty-five hundred
works from the museum's highly regarded collection-more than
double the amount of objects that were on view at the museum's
former Golden Gate Park facility. Spread over twenty-nine
thousand square feet in thirty-three separate galleries, the
treasures on view-colorful paintings, ancient stone and bronze
sculptures, intricately carved jades, delicate ceramics,
embroidered textiles, and much more-will be complemented by
state-of-the-art interpretive displays and programs, offering
visitors a comprehensive introduction to all the major cultures
of Asia.
The overseeing of the design of the new Asian Art Museum is a
joint venture of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK), LDA
Architects, and Robert Wong Architect in association with Gae
Aulenti, FAIA. Dott. Aulenti specializes in the adaptive reuse of
historic structures as museum spaces (Musée d'Orsay, Paris;
Palazzo Grassi, Venice). HOK, an international design firm with
offices worldwide, brings to the project substantial experience
in historic rehabilitation. The joint venture LEM/DPR is serving
as the construction manager.
