The De Young Museum in the News: View articles from local news organizations following the history of the new Museum and broad spectrum of viewpoints on the project's site, design, funding, and impact on the city of San Francisco Case Study Process: View the case study team's minutes from meeting with various parties involved in the project Internet Resources on the De Young: Follow links to web sites which provide additional facts and opinions about the Museum, including the web site of the project's owner, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
  Who Was Involved: View a list of parties involved in the design and construction of the Museum as well as the members of the case study team What Were the Team's Milestones: View assignments for the UC Berkeley Building Stories (A229B) and Internship (A128) classes What was Found: View the case study team's initial findings regarding the key issues defining the project

 

Fall 2002 Department of Architecture
UC Berkeley

 

The opponents meanly focus on the issues below

  
 
Aesthetic Merits*
"I'm disappointed with the proposed de Young Museum design. In fact I think it looks like a bunch of temporary school or earthquake units all strung together, with an ugly out-of-scale "thing" sticking up at one end. ¡­ ¡­Let's hope reason prevails and the new de Young doesn't get built looking like this design. It will be a sore thumb in the midst of an otherwise beautiful park. " Chuck Carrol, San Francisco, Examiner, 7/4/99
The foci of the debates is the tower. The architects have accented the building with a 160-foot tower rising from the northern corner. The tower, when viewed from the front of the building, is wider at the top than at its base, giving it an unsettling inverted appearance.
 
Tthe new de Young's 144-foot high-rise tower will appear from the east end of the Concourse. Photo from PNdeY
 
    
Environmental Impact*
Opponents appealed the Planning Commission's approval of their environmental impact report to the Board of Supervisors. The report looked at such things as the shadows the building will cast on the surrounding area and whether the new museum will take the park out of the running for potential designation as a national landmark.
  
Read about the People for a New de Young's appeals of EIR here.
 
    
Context* and Respect to the Nature*
According to some responses, the lack of context is the proposed new de Young's biggest weakness. They regarded that the building adds nothing to San Francisco's architectural or historical heritage, nor does its bright, massive design fit into Golden Gate Park's concourse. The building was conceived in the spirit of internationalism. The lawsuit filed by the People for a New de Young, a group of people opposing the design proposal, contends that the new museum will urbanize Golden Gate Park, hurt its historical value, that the hallmark of internationalist architecture is its absence of ornamentation; stark is in, decorative is out.
Again, the most notable problem is the 160-foot or 14-story observation tower that will be located right next to JFK Drive. The tower would be the tallest object in the park and would be very imposing. Golden Gate Park is intended to be an escape from urbanity. The tower would also be immediately next to JFK drive and would replace the large trees that are currently there. Replacing old and tall trees with a metal and glass tower would be a travesty.
  
 
 
    
Functionality*
The lead story in the Aug. 27 San Francisco Chronicle quoted from a scathing report on San Francisco's most recent public building misstep. "The [building], while designed to be a grand public space, does not function as effectively as it should or as effectively as peer institutions do," said the report, which noted a lack of usable space and a baffling floor plan as the building's major drawbacks. In other articles, the proposed structure has been compared to a Midwestern airport terminal, a discount furniture store, a car dealership, and worse.
  
 
 
    
Security* and Circulation*
One of "selling points" of the floor plan is that the structure will have several entrances. A bike rider, skateboarder, dog walker, or mugger, for example, would be able to pass through the structure without entering it. But in some people's opinion, the "Designed-from-the-inside-out" is pure fiction for this building; it is not " pragmatic ", "thoughtful" design. Even setting aside debate on aesthetic, the issues of security and circulation alone will be "nightmarish".
 
Photo showing the circulation, from Http://www.kastania.com/
Clearness*
For a building claimed to be designed from the inside-out, getting from the outside in is quite another matter. People attack on the proposal with its lack of hierarchy among the three main entries.
  
 
  
Three entries of the new museum. Photos by Http://www.kastania.com/
Misleading, the ethical content of design*
In its presentation, critics accuse the museum of favoring the tower's most flattering angle to downplay its size. Further questions were raised when the museum revealed that its published height estimates for the tower were 16 feet shorter than the actual design. The roof overhang was conspicuously absent from the models on display at the meeting. The extreme nature of the shadows certainly looked less forbidding.
  
Click here to see Chris Duderstadt's website.
 
    
Public Perception*
Some people considered that the problem of perception causes misunderstanding on the design scheme. Even Herzog & de Meuron's fans acknowledge there have been some miscues.
"Herzog & de Meuron are ¡­ ¡­actually not very good at presenting their work in drawings and models, and I think that's created difficulty for them here. It's only when you experience their buildings, or see photographs of them, that you really understand the high quality of their work."
"Herzog & de Meuron usually start with a simple and unimaginative diagram and then start working on it with materials and light, ¡­ ¡­pretty soon this little cube starts turning into a magic box."