History of De Young Museum in San Francisco - Essay Example

? No: “I hereby certify that the contents contained within are my original work and have in no waybeen influenced by outside works other than my own personal research.” Abstract The M. H. De Young Memorial Museum was firstly constructed in 1895 after which, it had gone through many transitory phases. The building that was originally constructed got damaged because of earthquake, after which, it was restructured. Even after its restructuring, it’s structure and construction were again and again transformed considering it an imperfect structure sometimes because of maintenance and sometimes because of natural damage. When the building was initially constructed, there were lacking tools and equipment that could be used for construction. The museum is an amalgamation of past and present designs and architectural excellence. This paper contains description of the museum’s construction and relevant details. De Young Museum (San Francisco) The M.H De Young memorial museum is the complete name of a fine arts museum situated in San Francisco but it is commonly known and called “De Young Museum”. This museum is located in the famous golden gate park of San Francisco. Initially the museum was housed in a fine arts building having the Egyptian style structure. The old museum occupied the area of approximately 1, 40000 square feet where as the new building occupies the area of about 292,000 square feet. De young museum was founded in 1895 and since then it is the hub of the cultural fabric of the city of San Francisco. Fine arts museum was an outgrowth of an exposition that took place in San Francisco in 1894. Different sorts of construction material were used to construct a splendid building of all times. Copper, wood, steel and glass were so beautifully used to merge the outlook of museum with surroundings of golden Green Park. Effort was made to complement the old hazardous building of the museum. Italian porphyry stone is used on the lobby floor of the museum. Fabric ceilings and wood flooring were used for designing the interior. The building was decorated with the images of hathor, commonly known as cow goddess. Museum was badly damaged by the earthquake in 1906 and it was closed for public. Concrete ornaments and large quantity of steel was used in museum’s construction (M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, et al. 184). De young memorial museum is great specimen of construction, engineering and architecture. Construction of such a building in those times without use of modern machinery was only possible by labor force and use of skills by the construction companies. M. H. de Young Memorial Museum (Old Building) The M.H De Young memorial museum is the complete name of a fine arts museum situated in San Francisco but it is commonly known and called “De Young Museum”. The museum is the result of California midwinter international exhibition held in 1894. After the exhibition the museum was first opened for the public in 1895. The midwinter fair used to operate from January to July during that era. The exhibition of 1894 was held in the same golden gate park where the museum is situated now. De young was editor and proprietor of the San Francisco chronicle. The San Francisco exhibition was the idea of De young that resulted in the construction of great fine arts museum at golden gate park (M.H. De Young Memorial Museum 64). The M. H. De Young Memorial Museum in 1895 Since then the museum faced natural disinters and renovation of the museum is still a continuous process. The earthquake of 1906 badly damaged the fine arts building and after words the building was demolished and reopened in 1929 in a Spanish style structure. The building was again declared a hazard as the ornaments decorated in the building began to fall in 1949. In 1972, De young fine arts museum was created as a separate entity. The museum aging faced a devastating earthquake in 1989 and building was again demolished and once again constructed at the same place in 2005. Since then all the fine arts activities are a regular feature of the museum (De Young Museum 2011). The M. H. De Young Memorial Museum before Renovation in 1941 This museum is located in the famous golden gate park of San Francisco. Initially the museum was housed in a fine arts building having the Egyptian style structure. It was constructed as a fine arts museum in a separate building in 1972 at the golden gate park San Francisco. The structure of the museum remained debatable for a short time. Measures to fund the museum were twice rejected by the San Francisco voters and finally it was decided to construct the museum in the financial capital. A lot of efforts were made and finally it was decided to keep the museum in golden gate park. One of the major differences between the old museum and new museum is size of the building. A major step has been taken by the authorities to spare more area for greenery in the surroundings of the museum. The old museum occupied the area of approximately 1, 40000 square feet where as the new building occupies the area of about 292,000 square feet. New De young comprises of a huge gallery area and a big tower. About 8,800 square feet area was included back in park to increase green area of the park. Few remains of old museum are also accommodated in the new museum. Pool of attraction, sphinx sculptures, and the palm trees planted around the old museum still exist. Sandstone of old museum still survives. More space has been created in the museum for holding different productive sessions (Pollock & Katz 109). Golden Gate Park, 1906 showing Earthquake relief tents De young museum was founded in 1895 and since then it is the hub of the cultural fabric of the city of San Francisco. This is the reason that quality of fine arts works representing the different areas of the world has been a great motivating factor to attract million of people from different parts of the world. The historical museum reopened after a major uplift in 2005. Now the museum opened in a latest facility having art, architecture and natural lush Green Park around it. It is a multi featured facility which every year attracts the art lovers from the complete world. De young was designed by the Herzog and de Meuron architects of San Francisco. These are the very famous Swiss architect firm and this firm did a great job to provide the city with state of the art museum. There are different collections of arts available in the museum. Few art works are of 17th century and numbers of creations are from the modern era. African, pacific and American art is on the display in the museum. Contemporary art and textile are the most appreciated categories of art by the visitors (M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, et al. 187). It has already been elaborated upon in this paper that fine arts museum was an outgrowth of an exposition that took place in San Francisco in 1894. About 75000 dollars of profit was generated at that time from the exhibition which shows the attachment of people with arts and textiles in 19th century. De young decided to use this money and construct a modern arts museum for the people accommodating arts work of different part of the world. Michael de young was the real force pushing the people to construct the museum. About 6000 objects were left over of the exhibition and those were initially placed in the museum. People of San Francisco wanted the preserve the masterpieces of Gold Rush era and donated thousands of items for the museum. De young himself donated many objects for the museum (De Young Museum 2011). De young purchased facilities for the museum as same were available in the exposition of 1894. Then De Young purchased many interesting objects that were displayed in Chicago exhibition. He also contacted many museums and enhanced the collection. De Young kept in mind the present culture of that era and decided to create his own objects and left purchasing readymade collections due to high cost effect. He took years to gather the collection of knives and forks from different areas of the country. Keeping interest of the people in mind powder horns were collected from different parts of the world. People of San Francisco and other fans filled the museum with antique guns and pistols and some are still present in the new museum. The most interesting thing was the photo gallery where pictures of all pioneers and heroes of San Francisco and Chicago were displayed for their fans. Photo galleries were part of the expositions at that time which was liked by the people of that area (De Young Museum 2011). Architecture was given due importance prior to construction of museum at golden gate park. The idea was to construct De Young museum which is to be linked with park location around it. It was so designed to make it accessible for citizens of San Francisco and other areas. It was established as an educational place for art lovers and undoubtedly the biggest aim was to preserve precious art collections of the people at that time (De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America 2011). The M. H. De Young Memorial Museum demolished in 1929 A Swiss architecture company was asked to present the design for the museum in golden gate park. Design presented was successful in merging the museum building with the park around it. Designed also explained an open and light filled environment (De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America 2011). Different sorts of construction material were used to construct a splendid building of all times. 7602 panels were individually cut using the computerized engineering skills to make the skin of the building. 9, 50,000 pounds of copper was used to make it the biggest copper clad construction in the world. Copper created many environmental problems which were not properly taken into account. I63, 118 square feet copper is embossed only in main building and tower. 5122 ton of structural steel was use to shape the building according to design and also to provide strength to structure. Other construction material includes 2500 ton of rebar and 1500 ton of concrete. 3, 00,000 lbs of glass panels are used to beautify the interior and exterior of the building. A separate tunnel was dug for housing 800 cars with elaborate parking facility (De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America 2011). Great architectural skills were used to construct a masterpiece building in San Francisco. Warm and natural materials were used to construct the building. Copper, wood, steel and glass were so beautifully used to merge the outlook of museum with surroundings of golden Green Park. Effort was made to complement the old hazardous building of the museum. Ribbon style window panels are fixed to shadow the interior from natural outlook of the park. There was a great logic in choosing the copper as major construction material for the museum. Oxidation process helps in aging and changing the color of the metal. This changing color adds beauty to the building and it will also help in merging the building with surrounding environments after some times (De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America 2011). Italian porphyry stone is used on the lobby floor of the museum. Fabric ceilings and wood flooring in interior designing make museum one of the most beautiful museums of the world. The food cafe in the museum has fixtures like hand held blown gas light. Number of trees has been planted inside and outside the museum (De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America 2011). Now I want to write something about effects of copper runoff. Excess use of copper pollutes the environment more than the industrial copper pollution. Palo Alto is just 30 kilometers from San Francisco. An ordinance has been issued by the government regarding prohibition of copper roofing material because of its adverse impact on the environment (De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America 2011). De young followed Spanish style of architecture in old museum after the termination of exhibition in 1895. He used portal doors at entrance of the museum which were rarely closed because of interest of people and quality of services provided by the staff. De young was very committed to expand the museum and collections. He decided to construct another unit of the museum even before completion of the first unit. The new unit opened in 1920 for which renowned designers and architect were invited to contribute in making of a great building. The second unit was similar to the unit of 1917 with a beautiful tower in the centre of the building. Construction of the museum was so planned to provide room for expansion according to needs. The old museum building had 45 galleries each having size of 140 by 48 feet (M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, et al. 192). The M. H. De Young Museum as Portrayed in Postcards The building was decorated with the images of hathor, commonly known as cow goddess. Museum was badly damaged by the earthquake in 1906 and it was closed for public for complete one and half year. Keeping in view the growing number of visitors, the further extension of museum was planned by Michael De Young that would serve the serve purpose for 20th century. Louis Christian coordinated the design of the new building to build Spanish style building. He also designed the panama pacific exposition in1915. The new building was completed in 1919 with add facilities like a central section, a tower in the centre that served as a signature feature of new building. This new configuration and structure of the museum faced all sorts of challenges till 2001. Thereafter the construction of west wing began which was completed in 1925. De young died in 1925, name of the museum was changed and the new name given was De Young memorial museum for honoring the untiring efforts of De Young (Pollock & Katz 112). The M. H. De Young Museum before 1949 after which, it was restructured for maintenance Concrete ornaments and large quantity of steel was used in museum’s construction. With the passage of time the concrete ornaments began to fall and museum was declared unsafe for public. Museum was demolished in 1940 as salt airs of pacific started rusting the steel supports of the museum. Japanese tea garden was one more remnant of exposition held in 1894. Brundage wing was constructed and complete orientation of the building was changed towards Japanese tea garden (M.H. De Young Memorial Museum 78). Heavy machinery and immense labor force was used for construction of the museum and different units at that time. Architectural aspects were so beautifully designed and implemented by the professionals of those times. Those still stand in their beautiful gardens. Construction was carried out keeping in view the landscapes of park. Superintendent of golden gate park gave continuous thought to structural aspects. The building was purely Egyptian in style. Two big towers were built in Egyptian pyramid style. Reinforced walls are the significant strength of building. Walls were carved and molded in Egyptian style under the supervision of skilled manpower. The capital columns are having the shape of lotus leaf which speaks of the expertise of people at that time. Egyptian modeling and painting were given due consideration in museum to truly reflect the Egyptian civilization of those days (Pollock & Katz 125). Principle buildings are still in Spanish style with reflection of California style. Coloring of building takes care of bright sunshine of California. Ivory style was used to decorate the building of De Young memorial museum. South walls of the building have decoration of richly molded portals. Top of the walls are decorated with different heavy ornaments. Cornice decoration was so attractive for the people visiting the museum and pillars on the entrance of museum are heavily molded and strong concrete and steel was used for construction of these pillars. Although, the units of museum were separately constructed but were joined together with corridors. Besides serving the purpose of a gallery these corridors present an eye catching view of the units. Skylights have been used to illuminate the galleries in both the units. This lighting effect makes galleries more attractive and colorful for visitors. Engineer wok of the buildings is so good that the arches built for supporting the centre halls are not visible. This engineering effort helps in viewing the complete hall without any interference posed by the supports or arches (Pollock & Katz 132-134). The New Building of De Young Memorial Museum De young memorial museum is great specimen of construction, engineering and architecture. Construction of such a building in those times without use of modern machinery was only possible by labor force and use of skills by the construction companies. Concrete ornaments and making of pyramids is almost impossible in modern times despite presence of state of the art construction machinery. Molding of gates and use of true Spanish and Egyptian style of construction is a difficult task in modern age. Copper coated and modern de young museum is a masterpiece of latest construction but old style of construction was unique in style and beauty. Now the construction s dependent on heavy machinery but in past it was dependent on the skills of people. Arches, sculptures, and painting of figures on walls and galleries are possible due to efficient labor only. Now the finest buildings can be constructed in relatively less timeframe as compare to past because the use of labor has largely been replaced with machinery. De young museum is a unique combination of architectural skills of past and present. It is undoubtedly the fourth most visited museum of the world. Use of copper, steel, wood and steel with beautiful landscapes of the park makes it one of the finest museums of the world. Use of different architectural styles and availability of amazing collection from different civilization make it a very attractive and learning place for art lovers of all parts of the world. Works Cited “De Young Museum”. Golden Gate Park, 2011. 2 April 2012. “De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, United States of America”. Net Resources International, 2011. 2 April 2012. M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, Marjorie Charles Driscoll, San Francisco (Calif.) & Board of Park Commissioners. The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California. The University of California, 1921. M.H. De Young Memorial Museum. European works of art in the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. Michigan: Diablo Press for De Young Museum Society, 1966. Pollock, Chris & Katz, Erica. San Francisco's Golden Gate Park: A Thousand and Seventeen Acres of Stories. San Francisco: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co., 2001. Read More