DEMOCRATIC DESIGN The renovated Oakland Museum of California gets a vibrant new identity and wayfinding program thanks to SOM and about 3,000 stakeholders. BY JENNY S. REISING
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rchitect Kevin Roche created the now-iconic Oakland Museum of California as a “museum for the people.” With its three interlaced museums tucked under terraces and opening onto gardens, the three-level, cast-in-place concrete building blurred the lines between indoor and outdoor space and provided a much-needed green oasis in Oakland. Its open, porous design allowed visitors to flow freely among the galleries and courtyards and, completed in 1969, it has been hailed as a landmark example of mid-century modernism. But 30 years later, the once-free arts, culture, and history museum was charging admission. The museum’s five entry points and hodge-podge signage system were wreaking havoc 48 segdDESIGN
on navigation. And the building itself had lost some of its original luster. “The building is both a blessing and a curse,” says Lori Fogarty, OMCA’s director and CEO. “It was seen as a little tired, a little dated, really significant architecturally, but not very visible. It had a ‘best-kept-secret’ quality to it that we had to overcome.” When Fogarty joined the museum in 2006, a $62 million master renovation plan by Mark Cavagnero Associates Architects had been underway since 1999. Having been through two previous museum renovations—one with SFMOMA and more recently with the Bay Area Children’s Museum—Fogarty immediately understood the importance of graphics in the redesign. Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, with whom she had worked on the redesign of the Children’s Museum branding and signage, competed for the project to revamp OMCA’s identity and signage. SOM won the job and turned to Thomas Swan Sign Company—its longtime go-to fabricator/installer—for a seamless realization of its design vision.