SFMOMA Rooftop Sculpture Garden

The sculpture garden is an integral part of the sequence of galleries of the museum; it is a gallery that can be curated as extension of the museum. To accomplish this, the entire back wall of the museum’s top floor is removed allowing its contents and visitors to flow out into the garden. The garden is brought into the museum via the panoramic opening created by removing the fifth floor gallery wall. Views of the garden unfold from the raised vantage point of the new Fifth Floor Garden Overlook. Cantilevered over the garden, the visitor is both suspended above and inside the garden while remaining within the museum. Visitors access the garden from a Bridge which is clipped to the side of the Museums exterior wall, hovering 5 stories above street level. The bridge is imagined as a space of transition. Moving down-and-over, the visitor is repositioned for the experience of the garden while by passing thru an in between space that is both within the museum and outside of the building, offering a panoramic view over the City skyline and to the streets below. The Bridge lands inside of a Pavilion that sits within the Garden itself. The Pavilion is a spacious and light structure that allows the Garden to slide through uninterrupted.

The garden is a space that is neither a building nor a sculpture; rather it is a void for sculpture. To borrow Gordon Matta-Clark’s words, the garden is Anarchitecture and the pavilion is a Non-ument. It is the intersection of sculpture, space, and light.  The garden composition is a response to the sculpture: each piece is provided a backdrop or tethered to the space. Without limiting flexibility or perception of space we provide a unique setting for each individual work. Three “ensembles” consisting of tree/wall/bench/paving combinations are placed within the outdoor garden-room. The assemblage of these ensembles creates further delineation of the garden volume. These intimate settings focus the viewing experience.

A colony of lichen covers the surface of the garden walls. The lichen expresses the fundamental link between the mineral environment of San Francisco and the complex ecological systems of California that support our city. Incremental and heroic, lichen colonization is both random and rational. The pattern of lichen bodies cannot be predicted or directed, but the dominance of some species over others results from the intentionally designed variations in microclimate. As a sort of “pre-garden”, the lichen is a symbiotic relationship between two kingdoms: algae (Protista), and Fungus, which converts bare rock to soil and is the beginning of ecological succession. Lichen, in the words of researcher Trevor Gowards, are “fungus that have discovered agriculture”. Lichen emerges when spores of the fungal fruiting body find the appropriate algae. Over time, the lichen trap soil and seeds of plants, enabling the process of ecological succession.

There are over 1,200 species of lichen in California, but they are conspicuously absent from the surfaces of downtown San Francisco. This is due to lichen’s sensitivity to air quality and the continuous renewal of immobile city surfaces: painting, refinishing, cleaning, and stripping activities destroy any colonies that might develop. By planting a lichen garden in downtown San Francisco we declare a bullish position on improving air quality and invest in stasis.

The sculpture garden is an oasis in the City: a place where art is experienced outside of the climate-controlled and regulated environment of the museum. In this garden time is revealed through changes in weather, light, and evolving life. The walls contain the garden and frame the dramatic San Francisco sky, allowing the changing light to animate the sculpture.

The gently modulated walls will register the passing of the day through changes in shade and shadow. The slow-growing lichen serve as a foil to the ever ― shifting movements in the arts that are housed in the museum. The colonies introduce a new scale of time into the city, somewhere between geological time and the hyper-speed of the information age. It is a garden of patience: a site of subtlety and detail in the fast, loud and blunt environment of a media-saturated age.

This garden poses the question: what might live in this city here after us? This is a minimal garden that is honest in its artifice: it is not more than a colonized surface and a few trees to provide shade and sites of congregation and contemplation. It does not reference, recreate, echo, or simulate a native, historic or idealized landscape. Its ultimate form and expression cannot be predicted on opening day; rather, we will become a city of witnesses to its evolution.

이 조각정원은 미술관 갤러리의 배치에서 필수적인 부분으로, 미술관이 연장되어 전시가 가능해진 갤러리 공간이라고 할 수 있다. 이를 달성하기 위해서 박물관 꼭대기 층의 전체 뒷벽이 제거되었고, 이로써 전시물과 방문객들이 정원으로 나갈 수 있게 되었다.

이 정원은 5층의 갤러리 벽을 제거함으로써 생긴 열린 전경을 통해 미술관과 연결된다. 정원의 전망은 새로운 5층 정원의 전망대에 약간 높게 조성된 조망점으로부터 펼쳐진다. 정원 너머로 설치된 캔틸레버로 인해 방문객들은 상부에 떠 있으면서 동시에 박물관에 남아 있게 되며, 정원 안에 머무를 수 있다. 방문객들은 거리에서 5층 높이의 미술관 외부벽 한편에 연결된 다리로부터 정원으로 진입할 수도 있다.

이끼류 군집이 정원 벽의 표면을 덮는다. 이끼류는 샌프란시스코의 무기질 환경과 캘리포니아의 복잡한 생태계 사이의 기초적인 연결을 표현한다. 서서히 증가하는 이끼류 군집은 무작위적으로 보이기도 하고 이성적으로 느껴지기도 한다. 이끼류의 패턴은 예상하거나 지정할 수 없는 것이지만, 다른 종들보다 우점하는 종이 드러나는 것은 미기후 안에서 인위적으로 디자인된 결과이다.

일시적인 정원. 조각정원은 도시의 오아시스이자 또한 예술이 경험될 수 있는 외부공간이며, 미술관에서 기후가 조절되고 통제된 환경을 제공하는 곳이다. 이 정원에서 시간은 날씨와 빛, 그리고 진화하는 생명체의 변화들을 통해 드러난다. 벽은 정원을 담고 드라마틱한 샌프란시스코의 하늘을 조망할 수 있도록 하며, 조각에 생기를 불어넣을 수 있는 변화하는 빛을 허용한다. 부드럽게 조절된 벽은 음영과 그림자를 통해 하루가 지나가는 모습을 드러낼 것이다. 천천히 자라는 이끼류는 미술관에 소장된 작품들의 끊임없는 변화의 움직임을 돋보이게 한다. 이끼류 군집은 지질학적인 시간과, 지나칠 정도로 빠른 정보화의 시대 사이 어딘가에 있는 도시의 새로운 시간감을 드러낼 것이다. 이곳은 인내의 정원이며, 미묘함을 드러내는 곳일 뿐만 아니라 미디어로 포화된 시대의 빠르고, 시끄럽고, 직설적인 환경속에 있는 디테일한 장소이다

Landscape Architect _ CMG Landscape Architecture
(Kevin Conger, Rayna Deniord, Sarah Gerhan, Erik Hanson, Margot Lystra)
Architect _ Jensen Architects
Lichen Research and Testing _ Tim Milliken, LSA and Elise Brewster
Client _ San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Location _ San Francisco, California, USA