From dazzling Scandinavian snow to San Francisco Bay. This is the path that has brought Snøhetta, the Norwegian studio founded in 1989 by Kjetil Traedal Thorsen and Craig Dykers, to design the addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), one of California’s leading cultural institutions.

Over 20,000 square meters, on 5 levels, courageously added to the spaces of the original museum designed by the Swiss architect Mario Botta twenty years ago. Snøhetta (which takes its name from one of the highest peaks in Norway) won the competition in 2010, vying with some outstanding competitors, including several important American firms.

Now the new building illustrates the ability of the Norwegian designers to connect architecture to people, places, nature and climate, updating the great Scandinavian tradition with contemporary insight.

We asked the architect Craig Dykers, one of the two founding partners of the firm, to tell us about this new accomplishment.

Mr. Dykers, you have worked in the design world for almost thirty years. Do you think you have reached a ‘Snøhetta peak’ by now, the mountaintop for which the studio is named?
Just think… every year all of us in the studio meet up, precisely at the foot of Mt. Snøhetta! Thirty years pass in the blink of an eye. As a general rule, no matter how much time has gone by, we don’t think too much about our altitude above sea level. It is nice to know, though, that we have reached a stage where people enjoy learning about our work and want to be involved with what we are doing. The more people we meet the better we feel about where our work may go next.

From the first important competition won by your studio back in 1989 for the Library of Alexandria, to the recent one for the expansion of SFMOMA, the museum that opens precisely in this month of May – what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about these two important moments of your life and your career.
We have an angel on our shoulders… we have been involved with a great many valued works. The great Library of Alexandria, the Norwegian National Opera, rebuilding the World Trade Center site, reconstructing the caves at Lascaux. It can bring us to tears if we think about it too much. All of us in the office feel we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. We dive into the messy world and participate in it.

SFMOMA is a project that calls for the extension of another outstanding building, designed by an equally famous colleague. Have you ever spoken with Arch. Botta? What does it mean to work alongside a building that is a symbol of modern architecture? How is a relationship established?
Mario Botta’s design has been instrumental in bringing the museum and San Francisco to where they are today, in a city of abundant life. Its design was integrated directly into our thinking and I hope that we have preserved its essential character. The most significant change was the redesign of the entry staircase. It was widened because of new safety regulations, since the building has grown in size and capacity. I have met Mario Botta on several occasions over the years, and we met briefly at the beginning of this process. We all admire his work and I am hopeful he will make the trek to see how his building has grown into its new setting.

The museum and San Francisco, and the beautiful bay. In terms of form and concept, how have you resolved this relationship? How can a new work of architecture improve the life of the city and its inhabitants?
All buildings must react to their immediate context. Unlike boats or cars, buildings don’t move around very much, so it is essential for their static nature to negotiate with the changing context around them. The SFMOMA embraces the maritime climate of the city. It is white in color and will glisten and transform in appearance as the sun and clouds pass above it (the facades are clad by 700 panels made with a particular fiberglass-reinforced polymer, ed.). It moves horizontally across the site and is framed by a geological aesthetic that resembles the great cliffs and mountains of Northern California. Where the inhabitants of San Francisco are concerned, I think people like to get a clear sense of where they can live better, and our building responds to that desire (the museum, besides the 9,000 square meters of new galleries, offers a promenade along a vertical garden containing as many as 16,000 plants of different species, ed.).

Mini-projects (a birdhouse in New York) and maxi-projects (the 25,000 square meters of SFMOMA). Why do you like to shift the scale of your works?
The smaller projects give younger architects a chance to spread their wings. Also it nice to see something completed in a few months rather than the decades most public projects require.

Ethics and aesthetics: which one wins in your work? Do you see a social responsibility in the work of the architect?
Ethics wins every time. We have to understand that our actions as designers form the character of the society we live in. Form without function is essentially decadence. A little bit of decadence is great, a load of fun, but it cannot be all we aspire to. I will point out, however, that ornament plays a function in design… it is just less quantifiable.

One last question: are you happy with ‘your’ latest museum?
Not just happy… in love! It is warm, engaging. I think it will be a nice place to sneak a kiss, while appreciating the magnificence the world of art offers us. I can’t wait to see it full of new visitors and new staff.

Text by Laura Ragazzola – Photos by Henrik Kam – Drawings by Snøhetta

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Detail of the facade made with fiber-reinforced plastic panels: the pale texture changes during the course of the day, depending on the weather conditions. The addition, an oblong 10-story volume, incorporates the original building, which is lower, with a squared form, tripling the exhibition space.
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The plan of the entire museum complex.
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The section of the entire museum complex.
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The new volume of the SFMOMA stands out amidst the skyscrapers of San Francisco: “Its design is like a rocky coastline in Northern California”, says Craig Dykers, one of the two founding partners of the Norwegian studio.
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Portrait of Craig Dykers.
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A nocturnal view of the new museum.
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The botanical ‘living wall’ that lines the pedestrian route running parallel to the museum (© Hyphae Design/Habitat Horticulture).
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Worksite phase.
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Planting plan of the living wall. Each color corresponds to one of the 38 different species in the vertical garden, the largest in the Bay Area with its 16,000 plants.