Moscone West
San Francisco
Gensler / Michael Willis Architects / Kwan Henmi Architecture

In a joint venture, Gensler ensures prosperity for the Moscone Center with a radiant and prominent addition

© Roland Halbe

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Barbara Knecht

San Francisco’s Moscone West does not follow the rules. Eschewing the black-box formula, Moscone West is a daylight-filled building that rises 110 feet on a crowded downtown street. It defies all the old rules of convention centers and yet has bookings 20 years out.

The original Moscone Convention Center (now Moscone South) opened in 1981 in an area south of Market Street, which was then considered the city’s outskirts. As a single-story, windowless, underground hall with an automobile-friendly entrance, it followed all the rules. So did the first addition, Moscone North, which opened in 1992. Virtually all of it, including the passage under Howard Street that connects it to the original building, is below grade. Moscone proved the formula works by becoming one of the busiest centers for medium-size conventions in the country.

By the mid-1990s, when the city needed to expand again, the neighborhood had become Yerba Buena Center, a vibrant cultural extension of downtown San Francisco, where land is scarce and expensive. To remain competitive, Moscone needed an adjacent site so that the entire complex could function as a single venue. The program called for a 45 percent increase in net usable area. The only suitable site, on a block to the west of Moscone North across Fourth Street, was 189,000 square feet, little more than 20 percent of the combined area of the two existing sites, but expected to add 45 percent to the net usable capacity.

"We were confronted, on a highly visible site, with the conundrum of convention centers: public buildings that are not open to the public. Fourth Street is a major pedestrian corridor from downtown to the entire Yerba Buena area, and Howard Street is a major vehicle corridor," explained Kevin Hart, design principal for Gensler, the lead architect. "Moscone conventions average higher attendance because people want to come to San Francisco, and yet attendees have no interaction with the city during convention hours. The idea was to make the building as transparent as possible, to allow the public to see what is going on, to enliven the street, and to give the visitors a connection to the city."

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Formal name of Project:
Moscone West

Location:
San Francisco

Gross square footage:
774,000 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$182.1 Million

Owner:
City and County of San Francisco Convention Facilities Department

Architect:
A joint venture between Gensler, Michael Willis Architects,
and Kwan Henmi Architecture

Design Architect and Joint Venture Manager:
Gensler www.gensler.com

Core and Shell Architect of Record:
Michael Willis www.mwaarchitects.com

Interior Architect of Record:
Kwan Henmi Architecture www.kwanhenmi.com