Museum of Craft and Design | San Francisco

The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco, also known as MCD, is one of the few museums in the United States exclusively focused on contemporary design, craft, and applied arts.

Founded in 2004, in 2013 the Museum of Craft and Design moved into a former industrial building, now known as American Industrial Center, in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. Designed by Gary Hutton Design and McCall Design Group, the 8,000-square-foot home of the museum features exhibition spaces, a retail store, offices, and workshops.

Main entrance of the Museum of Craft and Design at the American Industrial Center in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood; image source: Google

The Museum of Craft and Design does not have a permanent collection, it develops its mission to promote American and international contemporary design and craft through a diverse program of temporary exhibitions, conferences, seminars, special events, guided tours, hands-on workshops, and educational activities for children and adults.

The museum’s multi-disciplinary program of special exhibitions is particularly interesting; in the last years it presented exhibitions focused on various subjects related to contemporary design – including product design, architecture, digital and multimedia design, new technologies, arts & craft, communication design, visual arts, ecology, fashion, graphics, and food design – with a special attention to recent trends and research fields, social themes, and international emerging designers.
Featured artists and designers included Arline Fisch, Rebecca Hutchinson, Dafna Kaffeman, Marianne Lettieri, Wendy Maruyama, Peddy Mergui, Marjorie Schick, and Jerry Takigawa, among others.

Pictures

The entrance of the Museum of Craft and Design on Third Street in February 2017; foreground: a 1973 Argosy Airstream part of the “Archive of Creative Culture” traveling participatory project; image © Henrik Kam; courtesy of MCD

“Architectural Pavilions: Experiments and Artifacts”, June 24, 2017 – January 7, 2018, installation view; foreground: “Site-Specific Pavilion” by UC Berkeley Architecture students + Lisa Iwamoto; image © Henrik Kam

“Beyond the Pour II: The Creative Process”, August 20, 2016 – January 22, 2017, installation view; image © Henrik Kam 

“Felt Decoded | Wool: Nature’s Technology”, February 11, 2017 – June 4, 2017, installation view; image © Henrik Kam

Cover image courtesy of the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco