The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expansion by Snøhetta reconfigures a previously inward-focused institution into a permeable civic structure. Completed in 2016, the project nearly triples the museum’s exhibition space while restructuring circulation, access, and urban presence across a full city block in San Francisco’s South of Market district.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Expansion Technical Information
- ArchitectsSnøhetta
- Location151 Third Street, San Francisco, California, USA
- Gross Area42,735 m2 | 460,000 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2010 – 2016
- Photographs© Jeff Goldberg/Esto, Iwan Baan, Joe Fletcher, Jon McNeal
We approached the expansion as an opportunity to transform the museum from a singular object into an interconnected civic landscape, where movement, light, and art are woven into the experience of the city.
– Snøhetta
Urban Repositioning and Dialogue with Mario Botta’s Building
The original 1995 structure by Mario Botta presented itself as a self-contained object, defined by its brick massing and central oculus. The expansion shifts this stance. By extending along the rear of the existing building and occupying the remainder of the block, the new volume recalibrates the museum’s relationship to the city. Rather than competing with Botta’s composition, the addition positions itself as a layered counterpart, materially distinct yet functionally continuous.
This additive strategy allows the museum to open new pedestrian routes linking Yerba Buena Gardens to Third Street. Circulation across the site no longer terminates at a singular entrance but disperses through multiple thresholds. The block becomes traversable, and the museum operates less as an isolated destination and more as a connective urban field within SoMa.
At street level, full-height glazing replaces opacity with transparency. The ground plane reads as a social edge, with interior activity visible from the sidewalk. The entrance sequence extends beyond a threshold condition, inviting passersby into unticketed galleries and public areas. This recalibration of the façade transforms the museum from a sealed institution into an active participant in the surrounding streetscape.
Façade as Environmental Mediator and Urban Figure
The eastern façade is composed of more than 700 uniquely shaped fiberglass-reinforced polymer panels mounted on a curtain-wall system. Arranged in rippling horizontal bands, the panels capture and refract daylight, producing subtle shadow gradients that shift across the surface. The depth of the façade softens the building’s scale, breaking down the mass into layered strata that respond to the city’s changing atmosphere.
Embedded silicate crystals catch sunlight and create a textured luminosity that references the waters of the San Francisco Bay. This material articulation connects the building’s envelope to regional geography without resorting to literal symbolism. The white surface oscillates between opacity and reflectivity, registering variations in weather and time of day.
Rising behind the brick form of the original museum, the sculpted volume asserts a distinct presence within the downtown skyline. Its mass fills the block while maintaining a nuanced dialogue with adjacent structures. The façade’s horizontal articulation mitigates vertical bulk, allowing the expanded institution to register as both monumental and rhythmically scaled within the city grid.
Circulation as Spatial Experience: Atrium, Oculus, and City Gallery
Inside, the reimagined atrium functions as a vertical commons. Organized around a multi-level oculus, the space draws natural light deep into the section. A sculptural stair with oak treads and timber-clad sides choreographs upward movement, while suspended artworks animate the void. The black-and-white stone floor at ground level establishes a graphic counterpoint to the white walls and warm wood soffits above.
Along the new façade, the “City Gallery” forms a cascading sequence of broad oak stairs that connect the primary exhibition levels. This circulation spine doubles as a viewing promenade, aligning movement with framed views of downtown. The experience recalls San Francisco’s steep streets and public stairs, translating the city’s topography into an interior section. Visitors ascend gradually, pausing along landings that open toward the textured exterior skin.
The sequence alternates between expansion and compression. Narrow stairwells with tapering white walls intensify vertical ascent, while timber-lined passages introduce warmth and tactility. A suspended steel work by Richard Serra marks one such pause, thickening the threshold between levels. Circulation operates not only as functional infrastructure but as a spatial narrative calibrated through light, material, and art.
Gallery Typologies, Public Space, and Landscape Integration
The expansion introduces a range of gallery typologies tailored to diverse media and scales. Upper-level spaces with exposed-concrete ceilings and visible services evoke an industrial-loft character, suitable for large contemporary works. Elsewhere, controlled white-wall environments with oak floors and diffused linear lighting provide neutral backdrops for painting, photography, and design objects. Material continuity across these varied rooms ensures coherence while allowing curatorial flexibility.
Central to the project is the integration of unticketed public space. Amphitheater-style seating surrounds Richard Serra’s Sequence on the second floor, forming a gathering space that overlooks the street through floor-to-ceiling glazing. Visitors occupy the stepped timber platforms, both as audience and as participants in a civic interior. Free galleries and visible installations extend the museum’s social function beyond conventional exhibition formats.
Landscape elements are drawn into the architectural framework through a prominent living wall and adjacent sculpture terrace. Deep timber-framed window seats overlook the vertical garden, encouraging sustained engagement with planted surfaces. Outside, large-scale sculpture stands against the greenery and the rippling white façade, situating art within a dialogue between constructed and vegetated environments. The museum experience expands beyond enclosed rooms, merging gallery, garden, and city into a continuous spatial sequence.
About Snøhetta
Snøhetta is an international architecture, landscape architecture, and interior architecture practice founded in Oslo, Norway, in 1989. The firm has grown from a single competition-winning proposal into one of the world’s most recognized design studios, with cultural projects including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo, the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion in New York, and the SFMOMA Expansion in San Francisco. Snøhetta’s work emphasizes the relationship between people and their environment, with a strong focus on civic and cultural buildings that integrate architecture, landscape, and public space.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Landscape designers: Snøhetta
- Collaborating Architect: EHDD
