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 San Francisco's new Asian Art Museum opened last month at City Hall Plaza. The museum is home to an exquisite collection valued at several billion dollars. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)  More on California San Francisco views Life in San Francisco
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Printable version
Friday
Noon — Hot-pot break
2 p.m. — Saturday in the park
6 p.m. — Indian pie
9 p.m. — Two for one |
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Until 2001, the Asian collection was squirreled away in a wing of the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. Then the city recognized it had something to showcase.
A year and a half and more than $160 million later, the new Asian Art Museum opened last month in its new home at City Hall Plaza, in the 1917 Beaux Art-style building that used to be the San Francisco Public Library. Italian architect Gae Aulenti, known for feats of adaptive reuse such as turning a shut-down Paris train station into the magnificent Musee d'Orsay, similarly redesigned the old library's interior.
From the front, the building hasn't changed much; it resembles the Dartmouth Street face of the Boston Public Library. Step inside, though, and it's a new world: Sunlight floods down the main staircase and into the foyer from inverted skylights.
As inviting as the staircase is, visitors are directed past it to an expansive reception hall naturally lit by two banks of skylights. At one end, a two-story escalator reaches beyond the hall and ascends within a glass-enclosed curtain along the outside of the building. It rises to the third floor, leading to the start of the tour and the inevitable question: How did the largest collection of Asian Art in the United States end up in San Francisco, anyway?
Turns out, it almost went to Chicago.
Avery Brundage, industrialist and former president of the International Olympic Committee, started collecting Chinese ceramics and jades back in the '30s. In the 1950s, Brundage tried to make a gift of his collection to the Art Institute of Chicago, where he lived. The Institute wouldn't commit to housing it in a museum, so Brundage offered it to San Francisco after civic-minded residents campaigned for it.
The original Asian Art Museum at the M. H. de Young opened here in 1966. Today, the Brundage collection amounts to more than half of the holdings at the new institution, whose full name is the Asian Art Museum: Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture.
More than 2,000 of the almost 15,000 objects belonging to the museum are on display, set up in a meandering geographic and historic story line that uses the evolution of Buddhism as the linchpin connecting the diverse cultures of the continent.
A Chinese vessel in the shape of a rhinoceros, dating to 1100 BC, has become the museum's mascot. There are magnificent ceramics from Iran, an Indian throne designed to be secured on the back of an elephant, and a suit of armor from Japan made from iron and leather.
Walking into the Chinese Jade Treasury is like stepping inside a jewelry box. Tiny figures carved in jade appear lit from within against the dark blue walls. Here, as in many of the galleries, we were struck by the artistry and precise craftsmanship that went into making the art: How could anyone hand-carve such detail into a piece of jade only an inch or two tall?
The museum offers a place to take a break and contemplate such questions: Cafe Asia, just off the reception hall. Set up cafeteria-style, it appropriately offers a variety of Pan Asian dishes, including bento boxes, rice bowls, hot noodles, hot pots, sushi, salads, snacks, and sweets. The salmon miyosaki, grilled and marinated in miso paste with ginger and lemon juice, was prepared to perfection: tender, succulent, and flavorful.
The cafe helped fuel me up for my other weekend exploration: San Francisco's natural riches.
I stayed in the Richmond District, a neighborhood along the coast, to be close to Ocean Beach and hike along the shore. The Lands End trail runs all along the coast, along cliff edges and through lush foliage, offering a splendid view of the Golden Gate Bridge. This land was deeded to the city by another big businessman: Adolf Sutro, who made his money speculating in silver before the 19th-century silver rush in Nevada and was a one-time mayor of San Francisco. He built a railway along this trail to show off the shoreline; the railroad is gone, but hikers and dog walkers probably don't miss it.
Saturday is sailing day for the San Francisco Model Yacht Club in Golden Gate Park. Pint-size powerboats speed around Spreckels Lake in the morning, and the model sailboats take to the water in the afternoon. Stow Lake hosts local fishermen who want to practice their fly-casting. With a few flicks of the wrist, they toss fishing lines toward hula-hoop-sized rings in the water, testing their aim.
Not far from Spreckels Lake, a herd of bison graze in the Buffalo Paddock. Soon after the park, designed by Scotsman John McLaren, opened in 1890, a free-range zoo here was home to elk, bears, goats, and buffalo. The buffalo are the only ones that remain.
Also near Ocean Beach, the Queen Wilhelmina Garden, donated by the queen of Holland and dominated by a Dutch windmill, stands at the western end of Golden Gate Park. It's one of two windmills in the park that originally helped pump water to keep the grass green. The second windmill has been shipped back to Holland for restoration. The garden is carpeted with tulips in early spring and other blossoms throughout the warmer months. The Golden Gate Park Visitors Center, also known as the Beach Chalet, is a stone's throw away, at the edge of Ocean Beach. Opened in 1925 with a lounge, changing rooms, and a restaurant, the chalet sports murals, mosaics, and woodcarvings crafted in 1936 with money from the Works Projects Administration; they depict ordinary life in San Francisco.
Situated right on San Francisco Bay, the Richmond District spends more time in the fog than most of the rest of the city, but when the sun comes out it looks scrubbed clean, its hills begging to be climbed to reach beckoning parkland.
But Richmond has more to offer than natural beauty. One afternoon I ducked into the Balboa, a second-run movie house built in 1924 (it's just one of many legendary old cinemas in San Francisco, including the Castro and the Red Vic Movie House). The neighborhood abounds with restaurants and little Asian markets, where I bought curry and other spices and spice mixes to bring home. We dined on plump spinach ravioli at Mescolanza one night. The next night, we chose a particular San Francisco delicacy to take out: Indian pizza from Golden Gate Indian Cuisine and Pizza. They use spinach curry sauce instead of tomato sauce and toss on fresh ginger, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cauliflower, and dollops of bhartha, an Indian eggplant stew.
After dinner, you can walk the streets of Richmond. Like many San Francisco neighborhoods, it's hilly, and a stroll can turn into a workout, which is the perfect follow-up to an Indian pizza. The streets of Richmond at twilight lead up to spectacular vistas: swaths of green space and rugged cliffs dropping down to the Pacific, where an apricot sun dissolves along the horizon. After admiring spectacular art, a spring night like this one in San Francisco can make you believe, if just for a moment, that all is right with the world.
Cate McQuaid is a freelance writer who lives in Haverhill.