Exploring San Francicso: Landmarks and Offbeat Places, San Francisco, California

Initiated in the 1930’s as one of the first contemporary art museums, it is in the 1990’s that the Italian architect Mario Barro turned a dump downtown into the basis of today’s SFMOMA. In 2013 a generous donation from the Fishers - founders of the clothing brand GAP - called for the expansion of both the building and art collections. The renowned Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta - see the intriguing Oslo Opera House - designed a sustainable building. Its ingeniously manufactured fiber-reinforced plastic façade is a reminder of the ripples of the nearby ocean and in which the internal and outdoor spaces complement each other to showcase a rich and varied collection of modern art.

Exhibitions of photographs, mobiles, paintings, and sculptures rotate regularly on the 7 floors of the SFMOMA.

A massive diptych by the up and coming Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehertu welcomes the visitor symbolizing the good and the bad the painter saw in the USA the day after the election of Trump as president on multilayered canvases.

The paintings of Matisse, the abstracts of Braque and Jackson Pollock, the famous lines of Mondrian, the round shapes of Diego Rivera, the self portrait of Frida Kahlo, the surrealist pieces of Magritte and Dali, the bicolor paintings of Rothko, the realist photographs of Louis Stettner, the celebrities by Wharol, the comic-book paintings of Roy Lichtenstein so emblematic of the pop art era and many more share the museum space. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).