How the de Young trumps the academy

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Here's the difference between architecture and other forms of art: It must be judged by how it functions, as a matter of course, not merely by how it looks or sounds or feels.

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And that's why I'm not totally seduced by the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park - at least not in comparison to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum across the way.

Consider this column a sequel to my recent take on San Francisco's 10 best places of the past decade: a pier and a park as well as buildings small and large. While I'll defend each selection with vigor and delight, I also wanted projects across the spectrum in terms of origin and use.

Thus there was just one slot for the big-name, one-of-a-kind edifices that premiered between 2005 and 2008 - a space I reserved for the de Young designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, assisted by San Francisco's Fong & Chan Architects. The one with the patterned copper skin and the blunt but revelatory observation tower.

By the time I turned on the computer after the piece appeared, this e-mail was waiting to pop out: "How could you possibly have left the California Academy of Sciences building off your Top 10 list?"

That reader query foreshadowed protests on blogs and at SFGate's ever-combustive comments page. To be sure, fans of the San Francisco Federal Building chimed in to praise architect Thom Mayne's swaggering steel-cloaked slab. But the bulbous academy with its Renzo Piano design is the popular choice.

No surprise: The academy is crowd-pleasing architecture at its best.

That's certainly the case with the 2.5-acre "living roof" that is both a visual plea for sustainable design and a kick to survey from the rooftop deck. Soft fields of nine native plant species, including beach strawberries and lupine, flow up and over seven rounded peaks that supposedly are Piano's nod to the local topography.

It's also hard to beat the wow factor of the academy's rain forest, a glassy terrarium 90 feet in diameter. Cool as an object in itself, the transparent orb is even better when you step inside to amble up a ramp that snakes past trees and hanging vines above a clear lagoon.

When I visited the experimental environment last week, the much-ballyhooed butterflies were few and far between. But the vegetation looks great, and the colorful tanagers are having a ball as they zip from treetop to structural cable.

Even if the line to enter the humid sphere is too long, you still can savor the exquisite architectural details that are Piano's forte.

For example, the roof of the academy's central space is a swoop of glass open at the top, supported by a thin web of tense cables underneath. It was engineered with great dexterity by the firm Arup, and hovers with a grace that dazzled visiting architecture critics.

But the piazza also demonstrates how stylish architecture can fall short in terms of the overall visitor experience.

Before the institution's new home opened in 2008, Piano talked of the "piazza" as a calm retreat, the glassed-in equivalent of an urbane town square. Early renderings showed a single tree in the middle, rising through parted glass toward the sky.

That's the ideal. And now, real life: The piazza feels like a food court, or a decompression space where families can let toddlers burn off steam. You've got concrete floors, a concession stand and harsh acoustics. The spider web that looks dazzling in architectural photographs is lost in the commotion.

Architecture also takes precedence over information when you compare the rain forest and a similarly scaled planetarium to the exhibition spaces beyond them on the east and west. The halls are tall and dim, the displays earnest but overwhelmed. They seem like afterthoughts to the main shows.

By comparison, not one part of the de Young feels out of whack.

You can quibble with the copper skin, and some critics in 2005 dismissed the atrium as too low key. In fact, it's an elegant hinge to the galleries arrayed on all sides, exactly the sort of crossroads missing across the way.

The atrium is enhanced by subtle design moves that give the simple space life: the wooden staircase that widens as it nears the second floor, the fabric-screened light wells that slide across the ceiling.

Make no mistake, we're lucky to have each of these buildings. But the academy is a joyous collection of parts. The de Young is a sublime and smooth-flowing whole.

Top 10
John King's architectural Top 10 for the past decade in San Francisco, in chronological order:

AT&T Park, 2000
International Terminal at SFO, 2000
560 Mission St., 2002
Ferry Building, 2003
Lick-Wilmerding High School, 2003
SOMA Studios & Family Apartments, 2004
De Young Museum, 2005
Pier 14, 2006
1234 Howard St., 2007
Mission Creek Park, 2008