“Be sure to take the stairs!”
That’s good advice from a cardiologist, and in this case it’s good advice for anyone visiting the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).
Oh, there are elevators, of course — old leisurely ones and new speedier ones. But Craig Dykers, co-founder of the Snohetta architectural firm and lead designer of SFMOMA’s newly completed expansion, isn’t giving health recommendations. He wants you to experience the stairs as art.
Stairs are essential in experiencing the seven floors of galleries in the expansion. (Administrative offices occupy an additional three floors.) The split staircase in the original entry, designed by Mario Botta, is gone. A wide zigzag of maple wood, the same material used on the stairs and flooring throughout the addition, has replaced it. Each staircase is unique, inspired in part by San Francisco’s public stairways. That’s why Dykers wants you to see them all.
The museum acknowledges that no one is likely to climb all those stairs and traverse the 170,000 square feet of new exhibition space in one visit. Nor are they likely to see even half of the 1,900 artworks on view without developing a severe case of museum fatigue. While there’s no cure for that, short of leaving, there are remedies — areas the museum calls “palate cleansers.” Those include seating/discussion areas away from the art, dining areas, outdoor spaces (including a 150-foot wide “living wall” of plants), and even windows. Also, of course, those maple wood stairs.
The light-colored maple softens the vast interiors, but the stairs are already collecting scuff marks. I asked Sandra Phillips, soon to be the museum’s first Curator Emeritus, how they’ll look after the anticipated 55,000 annual student visitors, with their squeaky sneakers, begin to visit. She sees those marks as positive evidence that people are already exploring the new art and the building itself.
Tickets for the May 14th reopening of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are spoken for, but you can get in later in the month. General admission is $25. Those 18 and younger are free, and 45,000 square feet of “art-filled public space” is also available without charge.
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