Art dresses up in San Francisco and Carolina

October 16, 2005|Rave, Diane Daniel

In bicoastal makeovers in San Francisco and Durham, N.C., two museums have been transformed from lesser-knowns to superstars. Both boast not only impressive, upgraded, and updated collections and displays, but stunning examples of contemporary architecture to show them off.

The $202 million de Young Museum in the heart of Golden Gate Park reopened yesterday, more than a decade after the old Spanish-style building was damaged in an earthquake. The museum was built for the California Midwinter International Exposition in 1895 and later named for Michael H. de Young, chairman of the exposition committee and publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle. The new museum is city owned, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, but was built with private money. The building, all angles, glass, and glimmer, has a spectacular copper skin, which, though shiny and bright now, will assume a patina in 10 years or so. A twisty tower tops out at the ninth floor with an observation room. Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron's dramatic design, inside and out, will be the talk of the town for some time.

Across country, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, which opened Oct. 2, would fill but a wing of the de Young but is equally exciting to Durham-area residents. Raymond D. Nasher, a Boston native, Duke alumnus, and Dallas real estate developer and philanthropist, contributed $10 million to the museum. Opening exhibits include ''The Evolution of the Nasher Collection," which explores how Nasher and his late wife, Patsy, over the course of 50 years created one of the world's significant collections of 20th-century sculpture.

The former Duke Museum of Art was in a gloomy, unremarkable campus building and got little attention. The $24 million Nasher Museum, designed by Rafael Vinoly, is in a wooded lot next to the popular Sarah P. Duke Gardens. The building's focal point, a pentagonal courtyard covered by glass and steel, lends a visual backdrop to the museum's increased focus on modern and contemporary art.

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive in Golden Gate Park, 415-863-3330, www.thinker.org. Tuesday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Fridays until 8:45. Adults $10, seniors $7, teenagers and college students $6, children free. Tower and sculpture garden are free. Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2001 Campus Drive, Durham, 919-684-5135, www.nasher.duke.edu. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 10 am.-5 p.m.; Thursday 10-9; Sunday noon-5. Adults $5; seniors and Duke alumni $4; non-Duke students $3; children, Durham residents, and Duke students, faculty, and staff free.