Why is it then that when SFMOMA and many other U.S. art museums lately has formed a building committee, they choose from a very short list of “name” architects and then pick the most overexposed and expensive architectural firm?

With so much architectural talent and excellence going begging in the United States,and in particular California and given the unemployment rate among U.S. architects hovering at 40% why did you feel it necessary to hire a firm from Norway?

Isn’t hiring an architect when they have several museum commissions a bit late in the game and at the top of the market?

If every city has their Snøhetta building won’t it be difficult for the SFMOMA to claim uniqueness from all the other institutions? A cultural consumer is already hard pressed to differentiate one museum from another given how many are done by a mere handful of well know architects. From a marketing standpoint this is unsustainable. From an architectural standpoint it is a tragedy.

The building project, if it proceeds as planned, will stand as a monument to the current media obsessed age which is ignoring a generation of new, qualified, diverse, and excellent, architects. Lost is support and nurture of an organic and vital architectural scene in the long term in the attempt to generate buzz in the short term.

One looks to the boards of any city’s art institutions to be the patrons of all the creative arts each time they have the opportunity. It is dismaying that the boards of cultural institutions in your city do not support lesser known architects and include them in the making of your cultural buildings. As you say, “art and museums can transform peoples lives.”

Thanks!

Kira Kupfersberger