SFMOMA | largest museum of modern art in the US

SFMOMA and St. Regis San Francisco (c) 2017 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

We spent last weekend in San Francisco, choosing the St. Regis San Francisco for our stay. Located a few blocks south of Market Street at the corner of Mission St. and 3rd Avenue, SFMOMA is literally the hotel's neighbor to the south (see the photo above of the hotel tower in the background and the museum in the foreground).

SFMOMA re-opened in May, 2016 after a massive expansion and renovation project that tripled its gallery space. With ten total floors of exhibits, including two floors (45,000 square feet) of public space that require no ticket, this is the largest museum of contemporary art in the United States.

Alexander Calder sculpture (c) 2017 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

Because Saturday afternoon is an especially crowded time, we plan to come back and view the museum on a less crowded weekday morning. We live across the bay in Berkeley, just a 30 minute BART ride away. But we did walk through the two public floors of exhibition space, viewing the museum's interesting architecture, the atrium's central skylight with a suspended mobile sculpture by Alexander Calder, and a massive sculpture on the ground floor by Richard Serra entitled Sequence.

SFMOMA is one of many things you'll enjoy doing when you visit San Francisco. If you stay at the St. Regis, contact us for the Virtuoso amenities that will reward you with free daily breakfast for two and a $100 F&B credit just by booking with us!

copyright (c) 2017 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

the new SFMOMA | opening May 14, 2015

SFMOMA and its new addition

San Francisco is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States. I'm fortunate to live right across the Bay and love to look at this beautiful city when walking in Tilden Park, high up in the Berkeley Hills — the Golden Gate, the Bay Bridge, and the skyline of San Francisco.

The Bay Area has great weather year round (although we're praying for a VERY wet winter to help us recover from a four year drought), it's a place to come in all four seasons... and now there's yet another reason to visit: the soon-to-open and enlarged San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

One of the largest art museums in the United States, the new SFMOMA will have nearly 140,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor exhibition space — and the first two floors will be open to the general public free of charge.

Want to spend several days exploring SFMOMA? We have a preferred hotel right next door, the St. Regis San Francisco, where my clients enjoy exclusive Virtuoso amenities: a room upgrade if available, daily continental breakfast for two guests, as well as a complimentary lunch for two in Vitrine, the hotel's restaurant featuring fresh, locally sourced meats and produce.

copyright (c) 2015 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.