Like any proper tour guide, Connie Wolf has her speech memorized backward and forward.
But unlike most tour guides, Wolf will not walk backward while delivering it. Because San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum is still very much under construction. And because the footpath is littered with nails, shards and McDonald’s wrappers, Wolf and her visitors are well-advised to keep their eyes on the ground.
But that’s a challenge. Even with the museum’s grand opening nearly nine months away — June 8, 2008 — the grandeur of the Daniel Libeskind-designed building was evident despite the din of construction workers hammering, chiseling and drilling away on a cool, rainy recent October night. One often can’t help but gaze upward with awe — and walk right into a scaffold.
Wolf — not just a tour guide, but the museum’s executive director and CEO — took several j. staffers on a personal tour of the museum grounds last week. And although shortly after the July 2006 groundbreaking the former Jessie Street power substation building was reduced to a single brick wall, these days the museum has all four of its boundaries intact — and more.
Incidentally, every brick in those three walls, along with century-old joists and beams, was hauled away while subterranean work was done on a parking garage and the museum’s foundation. After being cataloged and shipped to several storage sites, the museum’s brick façade was reassembled like a puzzle, piece by piece.
Libeskind’s dazzling, blue steel addition is inspired by the Hebrew letters “chet” and “yud” and the related phrase “L’chaim” (to life). Contrasted with the brick façade, one gets a true sense of the old and new. The feeling is reinforced by the incorporation of the former power plant’s original joists, trusses and catwalks on the walls and high ceilings.
Built in 1907 — like so many structures in San Francisco — the power station “refueled San Francisco.”
“And that’s what we want to do, too,” said Wolf.
Walking through the museum’s grand front entrance, visitors will encounter “The Pardes Wall,” a massive, sloping slab angling slightly forward like the steel exterior far overhead. Grooved into the wall are four roughly 50-foot-tall Hebrew letters — pay, resh, daled and samech — representing the words “literal,” “allegorical,” “mystical” and “personal.” Since there is no “Hollywood” sign in Israel, Wolf and Libeskind conjecture that these may well be the largest Hebrew letters in the world.
Wolf then led us to the museum’s 2,500-square-foot ground floor gallery—almost exactly the amount of space the museum occupied in the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s Steuart Street home it formally vacated over the summer. The first artwork to grace the downstairs gallery will be an exhibition by “Shrek” author and illustrator William Steig, followed by a 1980 Andy Warhol series of 10 famous 20th-century Jews.
Meandering through a long hallway on the other side of the Pardes wall, Wolf led us past some additional wall space that future exhibits will one day grace, an activity room and a boardroom. Libeskind is still working on crafting the boardroom’s future table, she said, and is tinkering with a chai-shaped bit of furniture that breaks into four components.
Perhaps that’s the true mark of they type of museum we will have here in San Francisco — Libeskind has put his touch into every last outlet, bolt and, yes, boardroom table.
The downstairs will also have a multipurpose room with retractable seating for 275 or ballroom-type seating for 300. The room will be used to host a range of events, from San Francisco Jewish Film Festival screenings to theatrical performances and lectures.
Heading upstairs — a utility staircase for us, a quick whirl up the main staircase for future visitors — lead us to the museum’s most impressive rooms. Housed within the diamond-shaped blue steel wing that has become the museum’s signature element will be a 2,200 square foot gallery. Encased within a wall of glass and ceilings heights of up to 60 feet, this section will host audio art installations — composer Jon Zorn is working on the first piece to play here. The space will also host weddings, Wolf added.
Finally, the 7,000-square foot main gallery is awash with natural light flooding through the skylights and past the early 20th-century steelworks. Fittingly, the museum’s first exhibit in this space will be titled “In the Beginning” (which is not about building a museum, but about artists’ responses to the Book of Genesis).
Wolf hopes to move her staff into the structure in January or February, well ahead of the June opening. But she isn’t looking so intently to tomorrow that she can’t enjoy today.
As a pair of workmen hammered in unison on the building’s exterior and others welded and riveted, Wolf smiled and exclaimed, “Did you ever think you would see this day?”
Summer fare — the Contemporary
Jewish Museum’s inaugural shows
Mix the Book of Genesis, seven artists and the Big Bang theory and what do you get? In June of next year, the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s opening exhibit, “In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis” will answer that query.
The works will include sound installations, multimedia and more traditional art, and attempt to sum up thousands of years of asking the same question: “Well, how did I get here?”
Gracing the CJM’s downstairs gallery on opening day will be “From the New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig.” The Jewish author of children’s books entertained several generations of children with works such as “Amos & Boris,” “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” and, of course, “Shrek!” His 1,600 New Yorker cartoons and 120 covers showcased his grown-up side.
Finally, in the museum’s special events gallery, avant-garde composer John Zorn presents “The Aleph-Bet Project,” a series of meditations on Hebrew letters written and performed by various musicians. Throughout the project’s run from opening day until Jan. 4, 2009, the various composers will be invited to perform live at the museum.