de Young Museum

The de Young is one of the two Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, alongside the Legion of Honor. It opened in 1895 in a building left over from the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 and takes its name from the newspaper publisher M. H. de Young. The present building, by Herzog & de Meuron with the local firm Fong & Chan, opened in October 2005. Its skin of 163,118 square feet of copper is slowly weathering towards green.

The collections are broad. American art is the core, with more than 5,000 objects including paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. There are more than 1,400 works of African art, over 3,000 objects from Oceania and close to 2,000 works of ancient American and Native American art, while the textile and costume collection runs to more than 13,000 pieces. European art is shown at the Legion of Honor, under a 1972 agreement that created the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; in exchange, the de Young received most of the anthropological holdings.

Even if you are short of time, go up the Hamon Observation Tower. It rises 144 feet, a lift takes you to the ninth floor, and the glass-walled room gives views across the park and the city. Access to the tower is free, but it closes at 4.30pm, earlier than the galleries.

The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9.30am to 5.15pm and closed on Mondays. It also closes on Presidents' Day, Indigenous Peoples' Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Advance reservations are encouraged, especially for special exhibitions and at weekends. The café serves seasonal food indoors and on the terrace, which makes it an easy place to break up a visit.

Allow two to three hours for the main galleries and the tower. The de Young faces the California Academy of Sciences across the Music Concourse and its address is on Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, so a combined day in this part of Golden Gate Park is straightforward. Art lovers can plan a second day at the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, which completes the picture with European paintings, sculpture and works on paper.