de Young headlines in architecture weekend

A big event this weekend for the visual arts in San Francisco with the opening of the inspirational new de Young museum (right). Originally founded in 1895 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the de Young has been an important resource for the arts in the city for over 100 years.

Yesterday, October 15, the de Young re-opened in a new state-of-the-art new facility that integrates art, architecture and the natural landscape superbly. Designed by leading Swiss architecture firm
Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan Architects in San Francisco, the new museum provides San Francisco with a superb facility to showcase the museum’s wonderful collections of American art from the 17th to the 20th centuries, and art of the native Americas, Africa, and the Pacific.

Congratulations and best wishes to the de Young from this side of the Atlantic,
follow this link for more information, and a virtual browse through their collections

Staying with architecture it was announced today in the UK that the controversial new Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood, Edinburgh (below), has won this year's Stirling Prize, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects for the building which has made the biggest contribution to British architecture in the past year. Architect for project was the Catalan Enric Miralles, who died aged 45 before it was completed. The new building started construction with a budget of £51m ($92m), and came in after years of delays and construction problems at a final cost of a whopping£431m ($776m)! The overspend was so massive that an inconclusive judicial enquiry was set up to look for evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Lovely building, shame about the money. But personally I was delighted to see Miralles' inspired, but flawed, public buildling beating the favourite of the architectural community, Foster and Partners' temple to corporate greed and the infernal combustion engine, the McLaren Technology Centre.

And here is a link that is well worth following to sculptor Georgianna Krieger, who also happens to be the wife of fellow blogger and musician Michael Kaulkin who writes About the Composer. Georgianna works in bronze and, more recently cast glass, and works in the Bay Area near the de Young. Her sculptures really are works of extreme beauty, do click on over and view her exquisite portfolio, I really can't do it justice with just the one small visual (right).

Photo credits:
de Young - de Young museum
Scottish Parliament - University of Cambridge
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Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank for mentioning the de Young. We went to a pre-opening event a few weeks ago;it is very beautiful inside, without hitting you over the head with its design. (Believe it or not, some people around here hate it with a white-hot passion.)

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