Legion of Honor

The Legion of Honor stands on a rise in Lincoln Park in the north-west corner of San Francisco, looking towards the Golden Gate Bridge and, on a clear day, the downtown skyline. It opened on Armistice Day, 11 November 1924. The museum was a gift from Alma de Bretteville Spreckels and her husband Adolph, and the building, by George Applegarth and Henri Guillaume, is a full-scale copy of the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, which was itself based on the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur in Paris.

Together with the de Young in Golden Gate Park, the Legion forms the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Since 1972 it has held the European collections, and its galleries span more than 6,000 years of art, from ancient works to European painting, sculpture and decorative arts. The Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, based here, holds more than 90,000 works on paper, the largest such collection in the western United States, shown in rotating displays.

One feature not to miss is the symphonic organ, built in 1924 by the Ernest M. Skinner Company of Boston. Its 4,500 pipes are hidden behind a painted ceiling in the Spreckels Gallery, and free concerts are held on Saturday afternoons at 4pm. The building was renovated between 1992 and 1995 by the architects Edward Larrabee Barnes and Mark Cavagnero, when a glass pyramid skylight was added over the Court of Honor. Just off the north-west corner of the grounds is George Segal's Holocaust Memorial of 1984.

The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9.30am to 5.15pm and closed on Mondays. If you plan to see both Fine Arts Museums, check the FAMSF website for tickets and current exhibitions at each before you go, and remember that both are closed on Mondays. Allow two hours for the galleries, and more if you want to catch the organ or walk the grounds.

The setting is part of the appeal. The clifftop trails at Lands End are close by, so a museum visit combines easily with a walk along the coast. The area is a long way from downtown, so allow time to get there by bus or car.