The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco

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The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) occupies 20,000 sqf on portions of three floors of the St. Regis Museum Tower Hotel / Condominium. Located at the corner of Third and Mission Streets in San Francisco, MoAD is in the heart of the Yerba Buena cultural district and is a close neighbor to Mario Botta’s San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The museum celebrates the origin, movement, adaptation, and transformation of African cultures as they spread throughout the world. The Museum’s Mission Street frontage is distinguished from the remainder of the tower (designed by SOM) by its limestone cladding and expansive three-story curtain wall and atrium which lends a “jewel box” quality to the façade. Within this urban vitrine is a monumental image of hope as seen through the innocent eyes of an African-American child. Like the museum’s mission, it is a future comprised of a collage of disparate voices, histories and traditions – in this case, a literal mosaic of images that begin to tell the story of the African Diaspora.