Berkeley’s Judah L. Magnes Museum and the Jewish Museum San Francisco officially became one this month.
Under the rubric of a singular institution, the newly named Magnes Museum combined facilities, collections, boards, staff and budgets as of Jan. 1.
“We’re committed to making an efficient, economically sound institution that meets the needs of the community,” said Connie Wolf, executive director of the Magnes Museum. “Our hope is that people will wonder how we ever existed apart, since it’s so logical to be together.”
A unanimous vote to merge into one museum with two locations was cast at a joint meeting of the museums’ executive committees, following tentative approval by the full boards of directors in July. At that time, Wolf, the Jewish Museum director and chief operating officer, was selected to take the reins.
Since then, “a lot of work has been happening behind the scenes” to rethink the makeup of the staff, board, bylaws, programming, capital projects and other structural issues, said Wolf.
New bylaws and procedures have been drafted, and the boards have been combined into one 71-member entity that will hold its first meeting in early February. The membership of the separate museums was also united into one, as were the separate staffs.
The combined staff is currently assessing the collections from the former Judah L. Magnes and determining how to strengthen them. The staffs also worked together to organize the current exhibition “Face(t)s of Memory: Found Photographs and Family Albums,” which runs at the San Francisco site, 121 Steuart St., through Jan. 31.
“We’re examining every aspect of the new institution,” said Wolf. “Over the next several weeks there’s a lot of work to be done to really analyze how best to serve the community.”
As to the staff members, which number just above 20, Wolf would not discuss the specifics of possible layoffs.
“We’re recognizing where there are duplications and will be doing reorganizations in the process,” she said.
Wolf was also tight-lipped about the pre-existing construction plans for the separate locations in San Francisco and Berkeley, saying, “The board is now analyzing our options.”
The Jewish Museum was seeking $100 million for a proposed 90,000-square-foot site at the historic Jessie Street Power Sub Station building in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens. Designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, it was tentatively set to open in 2003.
The Judah L. Magnes, meanwhile was preparing to announce a goal of $46 million for a new site on Allston Way between Oxford and Shattuck in Berkeley. The site was purchased in 1997, and preliminary designs were drawn-up by award-winning architect Mark Cavagnero.
The merger was expected to significantly reduce the costs of these construction projects, said Wolf.
While she did not get into specifics, Wolf did note that “we may need to tinker” with former construction plans. It has become clearer since the merger, she said, that “we no longer need full-scale everything in both” locations and “we can house things in one that aren’t in the other.”
The San Francisco site, for instance, did not have plans to exhibit a permanent collection, she added.
“But now that we’ve merged we want to take advantage of [the Judah L. Magnes] collections and make them widely accessible.”