MANY PERSONALITIES- MANY STYLES
San Francisco is a progressive city. It has been the center of the goldrush, the United Nations, the Summer of Love, gay rights movement and the dot-com boom. Its very essence is about innovation and crushing the status quo… So it’s the perfect place for Art & Design. Here is Ciel & Lune’s guide for An Art & Design Day in San Francisco.
To describe San Francisco as both quaint and grand seems contradictory, but San Francisco is both. Vestiges from its California Gold Rush roots are evident, as are many well-preserved, ornate buildings from the Victorian era. Throw in some Beaux-Arts architecture with modern buildings (and people with a forward thinking, exploratory sensibility)—somehow it all works!
Heather Demetrios
“I’ve never been somewhere I belonged, but there are places where I think I could be happy. Like San Francisco. Well, do art museums count? Because I feel like I belong in them.”
AN ART & DESIGN DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO
Like most cities, San Francisco has a lot of museums and galleries. I think starting the day at a museum is best (it helps you avoid large crowds) and you’ve done something cultural first thing. Here we go: a perfect Art & Design Day.
MUSEUMS
LEGION OF HONOR
The Legion of Honor is one of the most picturesque spots in the world. Yes. In the world. It’s on the top of a hill on the far northwest end of San Francisco and boasts an extraordinary view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay, and the surrounding city. It’s a spectacular building (a ¾ scale replica of the Palais de la Legion d’Honneur in Paris), with a beautiful and easily navigable collection of art. The café is good, too. This museum is a MUST SEE!
*Mostly ancient and European Art, including works by Rodin, Rembrandt, Rubens, El Greco, Boucher and the Impressionists and post-Impressionists—Degas, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne and others.
SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
One of the largest museums in the world housing modern and contemporary art. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (also called SF MOMA) has 33,000 works including important works by Ansel Adams, Jackson Polloc,, Richard Diebenkorn, Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse. The café is nice (with a peaceful patio for dining alfresco) and the restaurant on the first level called In Situ, is Michelin-starred.
*The gift shop is huge with nice books, jewelry and other gifts.
DE YOUNG
This museum is in Golden Gate Park and is an institution in San Francisco. It was built in 1894 and then rebuilt in 2000. It has a collection of American Art, ancient American art, Oceania and Africa, as well as interesting temporary exhibitions (I recently saw an extensive Monet collection there).
*The lines get very long here. You can buy your tickets online and skip the crowds.
DESIGN SHOPS
MARCH
COUP D’ETAT
SAN FRANCISCO DESIGN CENTER
WILLIAM STOUT ARCHITECTURAL BOOKS
HEATH CERAMICS
NEST
FERRY BUILDING
CLOTHING SHOPS
ISABEL MARANT
ATELIER LAN JAENICKE
ANINE BING
ZIMMERMAN
MARGARET O’LEARY
GALLERY OF JEWELS
FOOD
TARTINE MANUFACTORY
FERRY BUILDING
COTOGNA
QUINCE
SPRUCE
ZUNI CAFE
ABSINTHE
FINAL THOUGHTS
Thanks for following along on our Art & Design Day in San Francisco. For other hot spots in California, see our The Best 24 Hours in Montecito post.
