NEW YORK — As construction continues on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Snøhetta-designed 235,000-square-foot expansion, principal Craig Dykers, based on the opposite end of the country in the firm’s Lower Manhattan office, gave ARTINFO a sneak preview of what’s to come: a rippling facade of “something like 800″ individually molded side panels of lightweight, plastic-reinforced concrete embedded with low-tech special effects.
Each panel is roughly twice the height of the average person.
“You can see how the light shines on the ripples,” he said, pointing to the undulating surface of a scale model hanging on the wall. “Imagine if this were the sun. Throughout the day as the sun moves, the shadows will change shape. It will kind of ripple without having electricity or anything involved.” The texture brings to mind the similar light-bending effects of Frank Gehry’s vertically scored 8 Spruce Building nearby, although SFMOMA’s new matte surface is going to shine differently than Gehry’s high-sheen stainless steel.
“It’s not a mirror,” Dykers continued, “but it will definitely reflect in contrast to darker buildings nearby. It’s a bit of a trick of the eye where the lighter areas will seem lighter than they really are because of the shadows.” And thanks to the quartz and mica mixed into the cement base, “It will sparkle quite a lot.”
— Janelle Zara (@janellezara)
Image by Janelle Zara
