Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Comtemporary Jewish Museum in SF

SF Curbed has lots of photos of the inside of the new Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF - it's that tumbling blue box on Yerba Buena Lane. Last time I shot a photo of it, in March of this year, it looked like this:But by September it looked like this (photo from mlinksva's Flickr page):

. . . Which is looking close to the artist's rendering on the JMSF page:They don't open until June 2008, but Jimmy Stamp got an inside tour and posted 14 photos (check 'em out - they may need to provide Dramamine at the door.) This project has been in progress for so long, I thought it was never going to happen, but it's looking good now.

2 comments:

Nancy Ewart said...

All I can think of is how in the heck will they display the art? Just looking at the photos makes me dizzy. I am a bit disenchanted with buildings that show how clever the architect is while not honoring the reason for the building in the first place - which is to showcase art! The blog "Art History Today" has a very relevant post on the museum at Bilbao regarding that very issue. But I am sure that the new museum will have its admirers.

Timothy Buckwalter said...

On the Museum's website are architectural renderings of the different floors with imaginary exhibitions installed. Nothing seems particularly clever about Leibeskind's design, except maybe the entrance - which is essential because it creates a tone for the visitor (think SFMOMA). Overall the design is a light, airy and lyrical entrance that leads in to what is basically a two story SOMA wherehouse. There is plenty of wall and floor space. It is a pretty standard contemporary museum design.

The photos are busy because the site is still under construction - there is scaffolding and debris everywhere, cluttering up the image.