Hungry mind

WAS IT WISE to visit the new de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park while experiencing slight hunger pangs? Could such circumstances have led to a de-mellowing of one's judgment, the core of which is that the building is not just inconceivably ugly on the outside but is, within, a soul-chilling cross between an airport lounge and a jail, a hell of angularities and hard surfaces devoid of human reference, except for the names of rich donors etched high on practically every wall?

For an extra charge, I wondered, could you have your rich person's name displayed in neon? And why was FedEx not asked to kick in, perhaps for a modest mention in the name of the museum itself? The FedEx de Young: why not? They do this at football stadiums, don't they?

Of course, I was growing hungrier as I thought these deep and subtle thoughts. Hunger does make the heart grow ... not fonder. There is a café somewhere in that great, copper-clad hog pen of a building, but I dislike the captive-audience posture (limited choices, high prices, and if you don't like it you can hoof it the half mile to the nearest alternative) and drank some water instead – the bubblers are free of charge and of donors' names – hoping to hold on.

If the de Young had been moved to the city center, as would have been the case in a civilized country, the hunger-plagued visitor might have had a few extra options in eateries beyond the immediate control of the museum, not to mention the possibility of coming and going by convenient, frequent public transport. And the museum itself would have benefited from the nearby presence of other museums and institutions of culture. Museums belong in the hearts of cities (the Civic Center, the Moscone Center), not in cities' great parks, those oases of wild green that keep us from losing our minds completely in overstimulating urban environments. To subject a public park to years and years of construction horror – noise and dust and rumbling trucks, and now the Academy of Sciences across the concourse has been demolished and must be rebuilt – is to pervert the central mission of the park as refuge. Our choices in these matters have been disastrous, and revealing, though not surprising.

I do like the tower, at least as a lookout post. From the observation deck, the park appears to be serene and undisturbed – at least if one overlooks the wreckage across the concourse – and there is the additional grace of the twisted tower's disappearing from the prospect when one stands inside of it, gazing out, with thoughts of grazing.

Paul Reidinger paulr@sfbg.com