SAN FRANCISCO WARMS UP TO HERZOG & DE MEURON’S MUSEUM

San Francisco’s new de Young Museum, designed by the Swiss architectural team Herzog & de Meuron and set to open in 2005, is nearly complete, Jesse Hamlin reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. The architecture of the museum, which to many suggests a “big crouching cat,” has been a point of contention in the city. But Harry Parker, director of the Fine Arts Museums (which is made up of the de Young and the Legion of Honor), says, “It’s been a long and controversial process, but at this point, people are intrigued with the design.”