Contemporary Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind

Friday, May 23, 2008

The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) will open its new Daniel Libeskind-designed building on Sunday, June 8, 2008. The new facility—located on Mission Street in downtown San Francisco’s Yerba Buena cultural district—is an adaptive reuse of the landmark 1907 Jessie Street Power Substation with an extension clad in vibrant blue steel panels.

Under the creative direction of architect Daniel Libeskind, the CJM’s new home revives the long-abandoned Jessie Street Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Power Substation building and reflects the Museum’s programmatic vision.
The most distinctive feature of the new addition to the Jessie Street Power Substation is its “skin” of over 4,5003,000 luminous blue steel panels. The blue colour of the steel is achieved through a procedure called interference-coating. Since there are not any dyes or pigments to decay, the colour will never fade or chalk.

The building will be the first to feature a unique cross-hatching surface finish, which helps to diffuse and soften the reflection of light off the blue stainless steel. These panels will, however, appear to change colour depending on the time of day, the weather, and the viewer’s position, creating a dynamic, “living” surface.


from: Materia
It is an interesting the building especially the way it is connected to the substation.

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