Discover The Newly Renovated Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

MagazineDiscover The Newly Renovated Museum of Contemporary Art San DiegoAD100 Hall of Famer Annabell Selldorf spearheaded the transformation

By Fred A. Bernstein

May 31, 2022

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The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, California, renovated by Selldorf Architects.Courtesy of MCASD

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The reopening of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) after a $105 million renovation and expansion offers further proof that Annabelle Selldorf is the museum whisperer. Right now, the German-born, New York City–based AD100 architect is updating two sacred institutions, the National Gallery in London and the Frick Collection on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. MCASD, in La Jolla, opened in 1941 in a waterfront villa by pioneering modernist architect Irving Gill. Then, in 1996, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA) added a postmodern addition that obscured much of Gill’s building behind exaggeratedly fat columns. Selldorf, who is stylistically agnostic, uncovered Gill’s façade while preserving one of VSBA’s best bits—an atrium with an intricately folded starburst-pattern ceiling. “It was important,” she says, while sitting on a bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean, “to make the evolution of the building manifest.” In the process, she nearly doubled the museum’s size, and quadrupled its exhibition space. (An auditorium, taller than anything buildable under current zoning laws, is now gallery space for larger artworks, including—in a reopening exhibition—pieces by Niki de Saint Phalle.)

The museum features two levels of light-filled galleries.Courtesy of MCASD

 Given the waterfront site and the museum’s complex architectural history, Selldorf didn’t look for geometric perfection, but instead allowed disparate forms to coexist, effectively giving the seaside village of La Jolla a new seaside village for art. What matters, the architect says, is that a museum so important to its community “is now open and available. That makes me happy.” mcasd.org