Artwalk: Building for Art

SFX: Music

 

NARRATOR:
Hi, welcome to SFMOMA and Building for Art. This is an immersive walk through SFMOMA from the bottom to the top, from the older to the newer. You’re going to be guided by radio producer, Avery Trufelman. And I’ll pop up here and there with directions. It should take you about 30 minutes to finish. You don’t have to press any numbers or do anything special. Just listen and we’ll guide you. Okay, so to start, you need to get to the very bottom floor of the museum and stand just inside the Third Street entrance.

AVERY TRUFELMAN:
Hey, it’s Avery Trufelman from 99% Invisible. I am so excited to walk you through the new SFMOMA and through the minds of its designers. Okay, move to an out-of-the-way spot near this entrance. I’m not just saying that to get you out of the way of the other visitors. I actually want you to be able to look at them. Watch people.

CRAIG DYKERS:
When do they stop? When do they smile?

TRUFELMAN:
Where do they look?

NARRATOR:
Are there postures sort of sloping down or more erect?

TRUFELMAN:
These are some of the questions Craig Dykers and the other designers of SFMOMA’s new building ask themselves when they were planning the new space.

DYKERS:
If you see people cricking their head up.

TRUFELMAN:
People typically don’t.

DYKERS:
Generally only from side to side, rarely up and down, unless we’re saying no.

TRUFELMAN:
Then, from somewhere comfortable, maybe with your back to a column, just take in this whole scene. The light, the art, the people. The architecture firm, Snøhetta, wanted to make a building that does the impossible. Allows you to be in two places at once, to be together with the people around you in this big, public space, and to be alone in some very internal place.

Because a good museum has to act as a bridge, like the one that stretches across the atrium. But a museum has to act as a bridge between the part of us that lives in the chaos of the world and the part of us that lives in our hearts and minds. The part that pulses or quakes or feels or thinks in the presence of a great work of art.

I’m Avery Trufelman. I spend a good part of my time talking about architecture and design on a podcast called 99% Invisible. Now, I actually get to walk you through the making of this brand-new building. Building a bridge between art and people is hard. So, as we wind our way up to SFMOMA’s highest public floor, I’m going to tell you about the challenges this building’s designers faced, and we’ll look at how they responded, and what they made. We just have to be careful to stay out of people’s way while we walk. So, let’s go. Let’s wander over to the foot of the stairway. Don’t go up just yet. Just stand to the side. To be clear, this part of the building has been here for more than 20 years. It’s where we’re headed next that’s brand new.

So stay here a second, out of the way, of course, and take a good look at these stairs. A Swiss architect designed the part of the building we’re leaving, and this is not his staircase. Mario Botta’s steps were like a tunnel, drawing you in from the atrium and steering you towards a quieter, calmer place. A Swiss architecture student once told Mario Botta that his buildings were like an oyster, rough shells protecting the pearl inside. And he answered, “I like to think all architecture is protection.” “A womb,” he said. “A place to refine your balance.” Now look up at these stairs again. It sounds weird to say, but this staircase is actually designed to make you feel a little off balance.

We’ll take a slow walk up the stairs now, or you can always jump on the elevator and meet me on the second floor. So, unlike the Botta staircase, drawing us into the comfort of a womb, this one is designed partly to challenge people.

DYKERS:
It’s an awkward route.

TRUFELMAN:
It’s at weird angles, jigs and gags.

DYKERS:
People will tend to be more polite when you all share the same problem.

TRUFELMAN:
Like we’re all in this together. At the top, you’ll walk straight ahead. When you’ve reached the top, where you should keep going straight, by the way, maybe, on some subconscious level, it feels like completing an obstacle course with a group of strangers. Like, “Congratulations, you’ve been initiated! You’re part of the team now!”

DYKERS:
The more we feel connected to people around us, the more we can accept challenges…

TRUFELMAN:
…and be ready for art.

NARRATOR:
Now, you should be near the admissions desk, facing away from the stairs you’ve just climbed. In the distance in front of you, you should see a blonde-wooden staircase leading to the second floor.

TRUFELMAN:
If there’s a crowd here—and there probably is—weave your way to the right of the lines. Head into the open space where the ceiling is twice as high as before. And when you’re in the clear, stop for a second so you can look around. This is the new building. And one thing you’ll notice is, so far, it is nothing like a womb. We’re inside, but we’re as connected to the outside as we can possibly be. Wander away from the elevators and you’ll find a whole wall of glass doors and windows. Walk further to find the big Roman steps leading down to another glass wall and another entrance.

Turn and look at the wall above the elevators. You’ll see artist’s Sol LeWitt’s blue-and-white undulations. All of this is free. Absolutely anyone can come bask in the presence of these works. So, as a first step towards building a bridge between us and the art, this big, porous entry way is saying, “Hey, you don’t have to cross very far. Art is for everyone.” Next challenge, how to carry that feeling into the rest of the museum. Because here is also where, if you want to see more, you have to line up and show a ticket. Prepare to shuffle through white- walled rooms to grasp for meaning and the inexplicable. To look for beauty where it might seem absent.

DYKERS:
It’s hard to look at art. It is. It’s hard for most people to spend great deals of time in an intense relationship with a work of art.

TRUFELMAN:
Let’s see if this building can save us. From wherever you roamed, go back towards the elevators and get in line, if there is one. Get ready to show your ticket. If you don’t have one yet, you can buy it on your phone right now.

TRUFELMAN:
And as we head upstairs, just one floor up, look at the people around you. They may be excited, but they also might be mentally squirming.

CROWD CHATTER
Where do I go first? What should I see here? There’s so much in this place. Am I going to get this? I’m going to miss it. Maybe I don’t have an eye.

TRUFELMAN:
So, we’re going up one level to the third floor. Take the stairs if you don’t need an elevator.

CROWD CHATTER
I’m afraid I’m going to get bored. Will there be art that speaks to Black culture? What am I taking part in? I don’t have an objective. I went to art school, so I feel like I should get it, and if I don’t I feel like I’ve missed something.

TRUFELMAN:
One way to put it is it can be easy to lose track of fun in a museum. You are statistically likely to yawn or at least feel tired. All of those uncomfortable, anxious thoughts and feelings were on the minds of the Snøhetta architects when they started thinking about how to make this new building for art.

DYKERS:
Is it possible to make a museum that is both comforting and familiar while also being challenging?

LARA KAUFMAN:
You know, how do you make a space that feels alive?

SAMUEL BRISETTE:
How to make sure that the experience doesn’t get…

KAUFMAN:
…the problem of…

BRISETTE:
…boring…of feeling tired? How do we?

KAUFMAN:
How do we?

DYKERS:
Is it possible to create a place that allows for different rhythms?

KAUFMAN:
Include spaces for people to stop and rest?

AARON DORF:
How to create the sort of cleanest palette for artworks.

DYKERS:
Is it possible to make a museum that allows you to open your mind to even sense the extremes of life, both fear and calm, comfort and, maybe, stress?

TRUFELMAN:
Now make your way around behind the bank of elevators. You’ll find yourself in a sort of sea of mobiles by the artist, Alexander Calder. And I’ve never seen this many in one place. It’s so beautiful. Another glass wall on this gallery and more access to the outdoors. Why? Step outside and wander through the sculpture terrace. Check out the greens of the Living Wall.

PETER SAMIS:
Connecting art to life is really desirable. Peter Samis has been with SFMOMA, trying to make art accessible for more than three decades. You don’t want it to be just in a bell jar all its own where it’s kind of suffocates, you know? I mean, to extent that it can be part of our lives, the more the better. It shouldn’t just be like these little, you know, lab specimens preserved, you know, kind of pickled in a vacuum.

TRUFELMAN:
Amen! That is part of why SFMOMA chose the architects from Snøhetta to design this building. They are especially known for buildings that feel a part of—not separate from—their surroundings. They study the landscape.

DYKERS:
We think of landscape as the mountains or the trees or the kind of beautiful forests that lie outside of cities. But all cities are built on some form of landscape, and while it may be buried under the asphalt, your feet know it’s there because you’re walking up and down. Your skin knows there’s a landscape because you can feel the wind. Your eyes know there’s a landscape because you can see the clouds going by or hills in the distance. This wonderfully rich soup of what it means to be alive gets poured into the buildings.

TRUFELMAN:
Snøhetta calls that wonderfully rich soup, the conditions, and in the case of museums, conditions include even our anxieties and our yawns

NARRATOR:
From wherever you are now, make your way back through the gallery of Calder’s and around to the elevator doors. With the elevators on your right and your back to the windows, make your way slowly down this walkway until you reach the low wall. Here you’ll be overlooking the Botta atrium, where you started.

DORF:
I’m Aaron Dorf. I’m an architect with Snøhetta.

KAUFMAN:
I’m Lara Kaufman.

BRISETTE:
Samuel Brisette.

KAUFMAN:
Craig Dykers.

NEDA MOSTAFAVI:
I’m Neda Mostafavi.

TRUFELMAN:
When the architects at Snøhetta begin to imagine a building, everyone at the firm contributes.

KAUFMAN:
So the very beginning is actually scary because it could be anything.

DORF:
You know, design process is like this super fun game of telephone where everyone takes someone else’s interpretation, and then reinterprets it.

MOSTAFAVI:
And sometimes the mis-readings are really the most productive thing.

NARRATOR:
Now head back to the silver elevators near the Calders. Stand with your back to the elevators and you’ll see an entrance to a stairway on the right, going up. Take those, or take the elevator to the fourth floor.

TRUFELMAN:
We’re going to see another very different kind of challenge Snøhetta faced when they designed this chunk of building. While we go, let’s review. The purpose of this building is to bridge people and art. To do that, its designers wanted to make people feel welcome and comfortable and energetic, and to make the building feel a part of the world around it, not cut off. Now, for the next challenge, we’re in earthquake country. Stop here at this big window for a moment. So this window and everything around us here, this is all part of a new edition, remember? A new edition that’s twice as big as the original building, but still an addition. And adding on to another building in California, where every once in a while the ground starts shifting back and forth beneath our feet, that’s tricky. And I get to show you part of how they do it. So turn your back to the window, now. I want you to walk away from it with the bank of elevators on your right, past all three elevators and stop at the next piece of wall you see to your right. You’re looking for the only wall with little inset windows. SFMOMA put them there so you could view the exact spot where the new building meets the old.

RUTH BERSON:
It gives you a sense of what it takes to build an addition to an older building.

TRUFELMAN:
That’s SFMOMA’s Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, Ruth Berson.

BERSON:
Any time you can raise your skirt and show a little ankle, it’s a good thing.

TRUFELMAN:
it’s dim in there, but see, on the left side of the gap, the brick facade of the original building? For 20 years, that brick was exposed to San Francisco’s endless cycle of sun and wind and fog. And to the right of it, just a few feet away, that’s the start of the new expansion. You can actually stand here with one foot in the old building and one in the new. That gap between them is called the seismic gap.

BERSON:
If we ever have any seismic activity, both of the buildings need to move past one another independently

TRUFELMAN:
Without that gap, they might take each other down.

BERSON:
It’s kind of creepy, actually.

TRUFELMAN:
But it’s also reassuring to see this building inside out.

BERSON:
Everybody wants to go see the star in her dressing room, right? You want to see how the makeup is applied and how is her hair done and all of that. Museums want to present a very finished face to the world and the extent to which you can lay bare what your process is, is a great thing.

TRUFELMAN:
Okay, now step back into the new building. That’s where your right foot is if you’re still facing the gap. Walk with me back towards that wonderful square window and then we’ll turn right. We are going to look at what SFMOMA has done with its art. At the window, turn right and walk down this long hall along the edge of the building. So this gallery with the windows is designed to be open. To let life outside the museum in. But now, take a right into the first entryway we come to. Find an out of the way corner where you can take in the room and the people in it. Here is the internal space, the place for just you and the art where the rest of the world can melt away a bit.

DYKERS:
People love daylight and they love views and fine artworks dislike daylight and don’t care about the views.

TRUFELMAN:
Some works of art just want to be alone with you. We’re going to let you loose for a minute. We want you to wander through any of the galleries nearest that you like.

BRICE MARDEN:
I keep thinking about it all the time. Keep thinking about how to look at paintings.

TRUFELMAN:
Artist Brice Marden says that abstract painting can take you on a ride…

MARDEN:
…or could take you to more complicated places. They’re not involved with a narrative. They’re not telling you so much what to do.

TRUFELMAN:
He says sometimes he’ll look at his own work and think…

MARDEN:
…I want this painting to be able to take me to something like paradise. And, you know, I mean, that’s what the arts do, call it whatever you want. I like the idea of paradise.

TRUFELMAN:
Look at the other visitors while you wander. The designers say it’s a good sign if you see any of the following:

DYKERS:
If you see people touching each other, holding hands.

MOSTAFAVI:
It’s kind of cheesy to say, but people pointing…

KAUFMAN:
… kind of pointing and looking and gathering.

DORF:
A sense of wonder.

BRISETTE:
You want the jaw to drop.

DORF:
How wide their eyes might open…

MOSTAFAVI:
Smiling.

KAUFMAN:
Surprise.

DORF:
Squinting your eyes and really trying to see something close.

BRISETTE:
soaking in that moment, really

DORF:
Stop and not say a word. It’s not just moving from room to room. You’re actually moving from wildly different ways of seeing the world.

TRUFELMAN:
If you think about that idea, that the museum is building a bridge between you and the art, here we are at one end of it. We’ve crossed over and left the external world behind, at least a little. At the same time, it’s quite easy to cross back over that bridge, back to, quote unquote, real life. And that, too, is by design. We’re not stuck.

NARRATOR:
Okay. Sorry to interrupt, but it’s time to head back out to that outer hallway with all the windows and views of the city. Out here, you might sit on a window bench and maybe look out at all the geometric roof patterns and how maybe they echo what you’ve been looking at. Or just look up at the sky. Talk with someone. Hell, post something on Instagram if you want. The building’s architects think of this room as a palate cleanser. You come here because you want something different.

DYKERS:
Change? Yes. The only thing that we absolutely know is a certainty in life.

TRUFELMAN:
Come away from the window so you can look at how the outside wall is curved. How it bulges out towards the middle of the building, and then arcs inwards towards the edges. Craig hopes the curve of this outside wall actually discourages anyone from hanging art on it. Do you breathe differently here? Are you holding your body differently? Here’s some of what the architects hope you see.

MOSTAFAVI:
I see people chilling.

KAUFMAN:
Stretching out. Using that space as part of their everyday life.

BRISETTE:
You can loosen up your tie. You can unbutton your coat.

KAUFMAN:
You might see your friend.

DORF:
Get very boisterous.

KAUFMAN:
They never get tired. They can go on forever.

TRUFELMAN:
Before we move on to the next floor, I want you to leave San Francisco behind once more and go see what I think of as the most internal space in this building. Walk to the farthest end of this oblong gallery, farthest from the elevators. We’re going to a chapel, of sorts, for the serenely meticulous paintings of Agnes Martin. Come. When you reach the end here, you’ll turn right into the galleries, but then left again immediately to wander through the geometric meditations on shape and color by Ellsworth Kelly. Stick to the left, that exterior wall, all the way to the end of the building where the curve reaches the corner. And when you can’t go any further, you’ll find an entrance to a room with eight sides. Agnes Martin said, “I paint with my back to the world.” Take a look from the center of the room, and then get as close to her canvases and steady brushstrokes as you’re allowed. Just rest with her work. One of the things I love in these galleries is that the light of San Francisco that, often foggy, wet light, you can sometimes find pouring into the windows of the long, narrow gallery we just came from, they’ve brought a little bit of it in here. Look up at the ceiling.

DYKERS:
It’s as if that natural daylight is coming from the windows and actually penetrating into the gallery. But it’s not. It’s an illusion allowing you to feel the sense of warmth that sun light brings to you. As we leave this chapel, don’t do it just yet, I want to show you a secret spot. A spot where if I were actually here with you, I might go, “Ah!” and grab you to show you what I see. So start to walk out of the room, but don’t turn left. Instead, squeeze into the space on your right, and with your back to that little piece of wall, look up. Up to the skylight, just outside the chapel. Sometimes, when it’s too bright, they cover it up to protect the art. So, sorry about that. But if it is open, can you see the tip of an Art Deco tower? We’ll see more of it later. It’s the wonderful, old, Pacific telephone building designed almost a century ago by one of the great architects of his time, Timothy Pflueger. Look how it’s peeking out on our museum, and the museum is inviting it to join. In a great building, there are many surprises.

TRUFELMAN:
Beautiful serendipity. Okay, come. We’re going back, once again, to the palate cleanser gallery with the windows and the benches and the sculptures. Weave your way out of the interior galleries, sticking to your right, and head back along the outside wall until you find a staircase.

So back to this long gallery. If you can walk up one more staircase, definitely walk with me. It’s not, just take a look before you go find the elevators at the other end of the room and go up one floor. See that staircase ahead? Stop when you get to the bottom.

Okay, so wait here at the foot of the stairs for a second, out of the way, of course. But just take a look at these slightly askew steps that narrow towards the top. The architects of this building walked all over our steep city while they were thinking about what to build. And among the mental images they brought home to New York, to their flat metropolis, were steps. The many secret stairways that wind up and down San Francisco’s hills. Let’s go up these steps if you’re able, or you’ll press floor five in the elevator. Walking up these steps feels quite similar to climbing up the city’s hills.

DORF:
Yeah, I mean, it’s probably all in the DNA.

TRUFELMAN:
That’s another one of the architects, Aaron Dorf.

DORF:
You know, the slope of the streets. You know, it’s the sidewalks that have stairs in them. It’s all the hidden moments in the alleys and passageways.

DYKERS:
We remembered what it was like to lose our breath and actually enjoy the fact that we were able to lose our breath a little bit.

TRUFELMAN:
Look behind you, carefully, and you’ll catch a glimpse of the climb up to the next floor.

DYKERS:
The stairs are made to kind of see the next one from the one that you’re on. And you have all of these really unusual views.

TRUFELMAN:
Like what you see outside when, at the top of the stairs, you stop and take a look out the big window. If you’re feeling winded, welcome to the city of San Francisco. Out the window and over to the left, there’s a covered bridge that takes you to a roof garden borrowed from a neighbor’s parking lot. It’s almost like these buildings are hills. The streets below are the valleys. And there are secret gardens and stairways running throughout. All right. Let’s head to our last stop. We’ll take the elevator this time, two floors up. To get to the elevators, weave your way back to the long, skinny gallery with the windows. You can go through either of the galleries next to you, either side. Just look for a red exit sign above a door, and follow it out to that curved wall. Go left towards the elevators, and to the seventh floor.

 

Whoo! All right, you good? You’ve done it. You’ve made it to the top of this hill. With your back to the elevators, turn left and find a door onto a balcony. Step through it. I like to think of this as climbing onto a shelf on the side of a cliff. And look across the valley. There’s the old Pacific Telephone building, the Art Deco peak with eagles perched on top opposite us. Sometimes the staff here sees hawks flying around. The U.S. Weather Bureau used to fly a 25-foot-long triangular red flag on top of the Pacific Telephone building to warn sailors if a storm was coming. And at night they would flash a red light. Now, keep moving down to the end of this balcony. San Francisco is a port town.

Sure, most of the container ships that come in and out every day dock across the bay in Oakland now. But this city is so deeply linked to its water and the designers of this building very much wanted to reflect that. There’s one spot most of the way down where you can see a sliver of water and a tower of the Bay Bridge.

 

Somedays, you can feel the water in the air. That’s the final so-called condition of San Francisco I want you to experience here: the sea and its neighboring bay. Is it foggy? Is the air here moist? If you haven’t already, go ahead and walk all the way over to the far end of the balcony, up to where you see a glass gate, which you’re not supposed to go through.

It’s a cool spot because the window there looks on to the rooms where SFMOMA’s conservators clean and repair artworks. Hopefully you’ll get to see a glimpse of some work in progress. This is another way SFMOMA invites you into the star’s dressing room. But the last thing I want to show you from here is the building’s facade. And I think right here at the end of this balcony is the best place to see it.

So turn around and look at our building. Look at its skin. And finally, you can actually touch something. The facade is weighty and the slightest bit sparkly. There are tiny bits of reflective rock inside these wavy panels, capturing the light, maybe making it glitter. Hopefully in that same way the harbor does. Can you feel the grit? And just like the bay or the ocean, there’s no consistent pattern in this facade. Each piece, each panel is custom made by a Bay Area company, and each a little different from the next.

 

The architects of this building talk often about bodies in space. Craig Dykers will say, “You might not think about it, but your body will know it.” When you leave here, Craig hopes very much that your body carries something with it.

DYKERS:
If it’s a good building, it will engender a memory more than it will engender an image. A building is not about its physical qualities alone. It’s about the things that you carry with you.

TRUFELMAN:
One lasting piece of the bridge between you and the art inside. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your visit here. I’m Avery Trufelman from 99% Invisible.

NARRATOR:
Thank you for taking Building for Art. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you’re into it, check the SFMOMA app for more artwalk offerings. We add new ones all the time. Bye for now.