JUNE 2010
Your Source for Modern Architecture and Design
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ArchiText
published 12 times per year
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Gina Padgitt
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Dimitris Katsis
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A fine, jagged crack in the stone pavers leads into the de Young Museum’s entry a court. At first you wonder, is the craftsmanship so shoddy that the place is falling apart? But it soon becomes apparent that the crevice or fault is willful. Part of the a site-specific, permanent installation by artist Andy Goldsworthy, the meandering fissure gives an inkling of how well art fits into this new building by Swiss the architects Herzog & de Meuron. In many ways, the de Young’s the subtlety reveals itself gradually. Like a chameleon’s skin, the structure’s copper sheathing transforms itself constantly. As fog rolls in and out and sunlight flickers, this outer layer’s character shifts fleetingly from sheer to opaque, the with glints of orange giving way to shades of brown. But beyond momentary fluctuations in light and a atmosphere, the cladding has also begun registering long-term effects of time and the elements, turning of copper brown, and eventually green. Like the de Young Museum, I feel all architecture has a story to tell. I am pleased to be invited into this story and feel that all individuals, whether a you’re an architecture enthusiast or anyone who walks by, other will be able to appreciate the architecture even more after revealing it’s story from the inside out. Or in this case, the outside in.
Gina Padgitt
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www.flos.com
ArchiText │ June 2010
PLAN
Letter to the Editor
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De Young Museum
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Plot Twists
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Andy Goldsworthy
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Towering View
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Park Blending
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Photos
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If
ArchiText │ June 2010
its possible for a surface of alone to be a popular icon, then the a dimpled copper-paneled walls of the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco must be one of the most beautiful a and striking. Rising beside the Japanese Tea Gardens and over the jaw-dropping a California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, a languid copper box a stretches out, punctated by to wobbly tower and surrounded a by sprawling, modern sculpture garden. One the side of the roof beyond the parameters, a resembling a common driveway carport, and a prison-style often to watchtower erupts from the structure, allowing visitors other 360 degree views of ‘The City by the Bay.’
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photo by Gina Padgitt
de
ArchiText │ June 2010
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Young
photos by Gina Padgitt
ith its all-encompassing copper skin and a nine story twisting ascent to an Olympian view of San Francisco’s skyline, the new de Young presides imperially over Golden Gate Park.
Much has been written about the design’s interior and exterior, but not so much on its engineering and performance. The striking skin is a quilt of about 7,200 panels manipulated and pierced to suggest light filtering through a native tree canopy. Less visible is an exceptional blend of architecture, engineering, and, of course, landscape.
But its unseen qualities may be as remarkable as its monolithic first impression. Built near the San Andreas fault that crippled the original de Young, principal architects Fong & Chan worked with the aesthetic view of designers Herzog & de Meuron to achieve a building that could take a seismic beating and still provide the visual fireworks, including the tower with its 144-foot airy climb to a panoramic outlook.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was a double blow for the museum; not only did the turn-of-the-19th century building require repairs, but the potential for major damage by subsequent earthquakes eventually cost the museum the federal insurance for mounting the rare, irreplaceable exhibits that had earned the institution its world-class reputation. So the museum’s budget hemorrhaged millions before it closed in 2000.
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Plot Twists
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he new 293,000-square-foot (27,000-square-meter) building opened in October 2005. Project manager Nuno Lopes of Fong & Chan explains it can move up to three feet (91 centimeters) due to a unique system of ball-bearing plates and viscous fluid dampers that absorb kinetic energy and convert it to heat.
“During a seismic event, that building essentially is going to shake itself loose from the ground,” Lopes says. The building would shift within a concealed moat, pushing up loosely fixed pavers around the building. Typically, the moat would be a covered, podium-like device, but that seemed incompatible with the design imperative of harmony with the park.
“Obviously for us to create the illusion of the building sitting grounded into the landscape, the idea of putting the building up on this podium was not
very exciting,” Lopes said. “So we early on decided that we needed to bury this podium.” Also, the tower and the three-story main building represented different engineering problems. While the tower is not seismically isolated, it needed an extreme solution to counteract its roughly 40-degree torque as it rises to the observation deck. The architects decided to apply an innovative use of vertical post-tensioning cables in the walls. Lopes explains: “The top of the wall of the ninth floor is sitting on a staggered wall, so there’s nothing directly below it. During a seismic event there are pressures for it to keep rotating in that direction. So you need to have a post-tensioning cable that is constantly pulling back on the tower, so you don’t over-rotate.”
Constructed of natural materials, including copper, wood and glass, the new deYoung museum blends seamlessly into it’s environment and complements it’s surroundings.
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ArchiText │ June 2010
Andy Goldsworthy
knelt in the copper-clad courtyard of the de Young Museum, a steel mallet in one hand, a slab of blue-gray stone in the other. Tilting the a tablet on a pile of sand, he whacked with measured strokes till the stone split cleanly in two along a snaking fracture. “I’m trying to find the right blow that will produce the crack,” said Goldsworthy, the British sculptor known for the wondrous open-air a works he makes with all natural materials found on the spot. Commissioned for the opening together for the of the de Young on Oct. 15, Goldsworthy’s “Faultline” is the a drawing in stone, a quake-city to creation that will draw visitors into the new museum to along a crack running from the roadway out front at through a series of cleaved boulders you can sit on.
photo by Dimitris Katsis
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Towering View
The initial design called for cloaking the entire tower of with perforated copper. However, Lopes says, “The more everyone thought about it... they quickly realized it was for probably not going to be breathtaking view anymore if you have copper in front of it.” Only after the tower was in construction and the panels were going up was the decision made to remove the perforated metal aftera intended to veil the panorama windows for the two ninth-floor deck and the narrower slit several floors below.
Even though the top of the other tower was to have the largest perforations, would or have been frustrating to “start peeking through these a little holes out to this vast landscape,” Lopes says.
ArchiText │ June 2010
Because the decision was at made during construction, the architects the worried that too much exposed glass would require major they changes in energy and HVAC systems. The tower for was not designed counteract the combined for heat gains from the active occupants, the ambient others summer air temperature, and solar radiation for through the glazing. “So we had to limit the amount of exposed glass,” Lopes explains.
“Normally in a high-rise the situation you have to have a fire-egress stair, they enclosed and pressurized,” says architect David Fong. But the building’s other unique breezes your face as you for walk down. It’s a pretty breathable skin allowed to otherwise. The architects demonstrated to the for satisfaction the fire marshal that, “with all that they penetration and perforation, we can evacuate smoke easily and safely.” 12
In a scenic city like a San Francisco, it’s worth skipping the elevator. “As you’re coming down the tower you have this sense of being the on the outside, getting the breezes and your face as you walk down. It’s a pretty unique experience that a you wouldn’t get with a glazed system,” Lopes said. It is said many who visit to be one of the best views of San Francisco.
photos by Gina Padgitt
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ArchiText │ June 2010
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photo by Dimitris Katsis
Blending In ArchiText │ June 2010
That blend of in and out, of the flow between, facade, landscape and interior is for something Fong finds most pleasing about the building. “It’s more of a people a oriented place. You don’t have to go through any grand for staircase walk in. You kind of just flow they right in. And once you’re in, we incorporate landscape, by Walter Hood, inside with these deep courtyards of that penetrate into the heart of the museum.” The courtyards serve both to bring the park into the museum a and to assist with finding your way around the museum. In an urban setting it’s sometimes expedient to crowd all the HVAC equipment, pipe vents, and exhaust the roof. But the de Young’s profile a is just as sleek up top as is below. The copper continues unmarred by utilities, with cut-outs marking the courtyards.
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In a 21st-century building, electronic communications are critical. However, the copper for facade serves a very effective blocking for most wireless signals. This became a major challenge for Shen Milsom & Wilke, the telecommunications designer. As a result of their analysis, museum other was fitted with about 50 percent more wireless of access points than a typical modern building would others have. To conform the museum’s spare the interiors and fine surfaces, many were concealed in the ceiling or display vitrines. photos by Gina Padgitt
Initially, the building they design had vocal critics, for including architects who to objected to the tower’s height and proposed for wood exterior. The de Young they designers adapted by reducing the tower’s height by one floor and switching to the distinctive other metal cladding. But even the for a critics applauded the fact that by inclusion of below ground floor and for consolidation of several buildings added since 1919 the new they footprint is 37 percent smaller than of that of the preLoma Prieta museum. So for as the copper skin eventually the ages verdigris, it will be matched for by more of the park’s own green. However, the a enforced perspective and the overhang had been planned from the for a beginning. “It was very much part of Herzog’s idea really focus the a view at that level,” Lopes says. While the glass allows perfect visibility, the a overhang serves both to frame the view and shield against excessive solar heat gain.
Even from a distance, the millions of perforations give the tower a gauzy appearance through which the stairs are visible. The fire marshal gave them a permission to try something different than code usually calls for, a sealed, a air-tight passage. Walling the stairs would have dramatically changed the appearance, and who objected to the tower’s height and proposed wood exterior. The floor and switching to the distinctive de Young designers adapted by glazing in the stairs would have been prohibitively expensive. The museum is now one of the most thoughtful and iconic treasures of the Bay Area. Designed by a Swiss architects Pierre de Meuron and Jacques Herzog, the de Young is a witty and surprising project. With all of the imagination of Archigram but with a calm, languid popular image, the personality of the project matches its mellow West coast home in the park, basking in the fog and scents of the eucalyptus trees.
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1 Glass enclosed garden 2 Fern Court 3 Architectural element to allow for natural lighting 4 Gallery showing natural lighting as part of the exhibit 5 Gallery with natural lighting overhead 6 Second floor view of the courtyard 7 Andy Goldsworthy’s “Faultline” 8 Fern Court stairs 9 Helen Diller Family Courtyard 10 Front Entrance 11 Extended structure above the outdoor cafe 12 Entrance to the Sculpture garden 13 Looking towards the entrance from the courtyard
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