In response to the public review process for the new CAMP museum in San Francisco's Presidio, ten architectural firms were asked to provide conceptual site plan alternatives to what was initially presented to the public. These conceptual ideas for the 100,000 square foot museum were on display for one month and were the topic of a panel discussion midway through the exhibition. The intent of the collective display is not to provide realistic final design alternatives to the current proposed project, nor is it to comment on the current proposed project, but rather the exhibit is shaped to propose alternates on a conceptual level that pose as many polemical questions regarding the museum program and its siting in a National Park as they do possible concrete solutions and alternatives.

The Contemporary Art Museum Presidio has the potential to make a significant contribution to the San Francisco cultural scene. CAMP was conceived by Don and Doris Fischer to house their vast collection of modern and contemporary art: a collection that SFMOMA director Neal Benezra considers to be “one of the most important private collections in the world.” Yet, regardless of the obvious cultural benefit that CAMP would bring to San Francisco and to the Presidio, the building proposal for the site at the south edge of the Main Parade Ground has met with much public controversy. While we understand the allure of the proposed site at the upper edge of the Main Parade Ground -- its commanding formal location, the need to buttress the existing formal weakness of the enclosure of the upper end of the space -- we also recognize that a building with an unabashed contemporary language occupying the iconic head of the Main Parade Ground could be seen by some as an act of domination over the historic fabric of this important military site. At the same time, we wonder whether there is a larger role that a museum proposal such as this should play in supporting the wider goals of a city through its building program. Should an important cultural building simply occupy a site, or does it have the responsibility to activate the city?

Our reconsideration of CAMP deploys a strategy that posits the program as an activator of the urban condition -- through its physical reorganization of a site and through its role as a cultural destination point. Our conception of the museum is that it best serves the community when it bbraces and extends the expressed and implicit planning goals that benefit urban life. A thoughtful institution (with an ambitious building program) can act as a generator of programmatic and physical linkages within the urban condition. Moreover, we assert that the museum itself can shape the identity of the city by enhancing and directing the way people engage with the spaces of the city. As part of CAMP:reconsidered we explore two parallel propositions - CAMPresidio + CAMPier70 - in order to arrive at the inherent potentials of the building.

CAMPresidio

The double-arrow is an intriguing lure into the question of what is it that the Presidio is lacking in the vicinity of the Main Parade Ground. It indicates, through its slight hook, the desire for a vertical pedestrian connection from the bay promenade to the primary central space of the Presidio: the Main Parade Ground. We see in the idea of the double-arrow an opportunity for the CAMP building not only to occupy a site on the Presidio, but to be an activator, a link, a reorganizer of how people move to and through the site. We see in the grammatical figure of the double-arrow a potential strategy that knits together the current plans and stated goals of the Presidio Trust, Regional Transportation plans, Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and the City of San Francisco. The double-arrow, a bi-conditional figure, implies a “both/and” strategy toward programmatic and structural synergies between potentially competing interests.

CAMPier70

Although we believe that an engaged approach to the goals of the Presidio could result in a dynamic and compelling CAMP building, the elephant in the gallery is the question of whether CAMP should even be located in the Presidio. There are potentially a number of San Francisco city sites which could be mutually beneficial to the city and to the Fischer museum: defunct piers, Mission Bay, the 3rd + Mission museum district... As a hypothetical proposal, we chose the currently “open” site of Pier70 to imagine an alternative siting for CAMP. We imported the “both/and” notion of the double-arrow to investigate the simultaneous possibilities at CAMPier70: as a node in the web of cultural institutions; as a programmatic supporter of neighboring artist studios; as a cultural event on an extended Bay Trail; as a regenerator of existing brownfield conditions; as a vertical tower acting as an iconic node in a network of cultural institutions; and, as a programatic hybrid of park-museum-housing-commercial+artist studios.

3A Gallery