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The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

Tripper-No1
Tripper-No1
Oct 23, 2019

Catalogue

  • 1.Exploratorium
  • 2.USS Hornet Museum
  • 3.Asian Art Museum
  • 4.Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
  • 5.California Academy of Sciences
  • 6.San Francisco Center for the Book
  • 7.The Beat Museum
  • 8.Contemporary Jewish Museum
  • 9.Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
  • 10.San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
  • 11.De Young Museum
  • 12.Palace of Fine Arts
  • Concluding Notes
  • Show More

San Francisco is a beautiful city with a part of the coastline along the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay, and around 50 hills being part of the city, making it a huge tourist destination. When you think of visiting San Francisco, many attractions come to mind since this lovely city has more than a bit of everything. For the museum enthusiasts, the city has hundreds of museums, and we strive to list out the top museums in San Francisco by filtering out the best for your benefit.

The first place on our top museums of San Francisco, Exploratorium, is no ordinary museum. It is a human learning laboratory where exploration and learning are through human perception, science, and art. You can have a wonderful exploratory and learning experience here through the tools offered by the museum in the form of many exhibits, online content of around 35,000 pages, events, film screenings and more. The museum is also helping out in the way science education is imparted. The brilliant concept of teaching through experimentation and transforming the way science education is imparted and science is approached in research, as pioneered by Frank Oppenheimer, culminated in the opening of Exploratorium in 1969.

It is located at pier 15, Embarcadero. It is open from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM between Tuesday and Sunday and night 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM on Thursday evenings. It is closed on Mondays. Entry ticket costs $ 29.95 for adults above 18, with discounts available for seniors above 65 years and teenagers between 13 and 17. It is free for children below 12, members, and teachers. After-dark tickets, every Thursday between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM, are available at $ 19.95.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

USS Hornet Museum, next in our list of top museums of San Francisco, is dedicated to an aircraft carrier of that name, which was extensively and effectively used in World War II by the US navy, mainly against the Japanese. The carrier group had shot down an astounding 668 planes and destroyed 742 planes on the ground and also had sunk 73 ships and damaged more than 430 during the battles with the enemy on the Pacifica Ocean and near the Japanese coast. It was commissioned in Oct 1941 and was sunk a year later in the battle of Santa Cruz. The carrier was 251 meters long, had a displacement of 20,000 tons, and carried 72 aircraft.

The museum consists of the USS Hornet aircraft carrier, several aircraft of the 1940 to 1980s era and includes fighters, bombers, torpedo bombers, and trainer aircraft, apart from NASA Apollo mission exhibits like the command module, Apollo mobile Quarantine, SH-3H Sea king used in the movie Apollo 13 and hundreds of photographs and memorabilia related to Apollo 11 and 12 splashdowns.

All the exhibits are displayed on the Hanger deck and the 2nd deck. They include several items relating to the carrier, its crew, including photographs, items, and firsthand accounts of the crew about the sinking of the ship.

It is open from 11:00 AM to 12:00 midnight on most days, with the closing time extended up to 1:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The next place Asian Art Museum in our list of top museums in San Francisco has one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian artworks in the US. The museum has collections that include thousands of masterpieces in paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, ceramics, ritual objects, lacquer wares, and jade carvings. It has collections of artworks dating back thousands of years from China, Japan, India, Cambodia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and many more parts of Asia. It has an online collection of more than 11,000 works. On display is around 2000 works of art that keep rotating frequently.

The museum is located at 200, Larkin Street. It is open from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on all days except Monday when it is closed. The entry tickets are priced at $25 for adults, and others, it is $20.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The Ripley’s Believe It or Not next place in our list of top museums in San Francisco is a must-visit for any visitor. You will be simply awestruck by the versatile, unique, strange, and unbelievable attractions you will witness here, including some artifacts and astonishing exhibits you don’t find anywhere else. The auditorium is where the whole family can have enjoyment in Fisherman’s wharf, can find some amazing artworks, shrunken Egyptian heads, and mummified foot. Next is the Mirror Maze, where you can have extreme fun in trying to test your sense of perception and direction by entering the labyrinth and trying to find your way out. For the paranoid, the museum sends in search parties every 30 minutes, so nothing to fear, have fun. You can test your skill set with the laser race experience as you try to wriggle out of the laser beams.

The museum is located near pier 39 and is open on all days, from Friday to Saturday from10:00 AM to 10:00 PM and Sunday to Thursday, 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM. The ticket prices vary from $ 10 to $ 87 for adults for a single attraction entry to a five-way 2-day combo ticket. Online booking facility is available.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

This is another lovely place in our list of top museums in San Francisco, which you will undoubtedly enjoy. This is a combination of a natural history museum, aquarium, rain forest, and a planetarium, and all clubbed in one.

The natural history museum is a place to learn scientific discoveries, evolution, natural habitats, geological events like earthquakes, diversity of the planet. The exhibits include geological gems and the giant Foucault pendulum. The spectacular aquarium includes attractions like the Philippines coral reef, African Penguins, California coast, water planet, reef lagoon, and even a swamp. The 75-foot high dome of the planetarium with NanoSeam 75 foot diameter projection screen projects one of the most spectacular digital universes enabling you to experience the awesome sight of the cosmos. The four-story Osher rainforest has a colorful collection of 1600 live plants and animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, spiders, and many more exotic species to give you a truly spectacular experience of the diversity in the animal and plant kingdoms.

The lovely museum is located in the Golden Gate Park, 55 Music Concourse Drive, and is open from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM from Monday to Saturday and from 11 AM to 5:00 PM on Sundays.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The next place in our list of top museums in San Francisco is a lovely place dedicated to everything related to books, from the art of letterpress printing to binding. The museum exhibits include astonishing palm leaf writings, works from India, and few other southeast Asian countries dating back to thousands of years, long before the advent of printing or modern writing tools. It also features contemporary artworks on palm leaves, a talent learned from the traditional sources of such an ancient practice to preserve and carry it forward. The museum was established in 1996, and since then, it has hosted more than 100 exhibitions related to book arts. It has a fully equipped letterpress printing studio, with many wood and metal antique presses, bookbinding facilities, art, and crafts room. It holds over 300 workshops and about 50 free events every year to disseminate and promote book arts skills.

This museum is located at 375, Rhode Island Street. It is open on all days from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and admission is free for everyone.

The Beat Museum, established in 2003, in our list of top museums in San Francisco, is located at 540 Broadway at Columbus Avenue. It is dedicated to the Beat generation and all that they stood for, and rightly, it is located in the epicenter of their activism in the 1950s. The collection of writers, thinkers, and artists came together during the 1950s to spread hope, compassion, and tolerance. They published a series of books during that time. Their philosophy included rejection of standard narratives and materialism, exploring eastern and western religions, choosing a spiritual path to wisdom in the aftermath of the severe effects of World War II. It is interesting to note that some aspects of the Beats philosophy, like sexual liberalism, spilled over into the starting of the hippie movement.

The entry tickets are priced at $8 for adults and $5 for others, and it is open every day from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The Contemporary Jewish Museum in our list of top museums in San Francisco, you will find very different from normal museums. The building itself is a lovely fusion of old and modern, with an amazing architecture that combines an old 1881 powerhouse with modern blue steel structure dominating the skyline of that area. It might be interesting to you to know that the inspiration behind the structure’s unique shape is two Hebrew words, chet, and yud, meaning life. It is a non-collecting museum started with the aim of promoting coordination, cooperation, and understanding of artistic experience, expertise, and learning among international Jewish cultural organizations and people across the world, to promote dialogue and discussions. Frequent cultural exhibitions are organized here in this aspect by various organizations. It is a place where the staff and visiting scholars prepare interesting Jewish content.

It is located at 736 Mission Street. The opening hours are 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM on Thursday, and 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM on all other days, except Wednesday on which it is closed. The tickets are priced at $16 for adults and $14 for seniors and students. Entry is free for children below 18 years.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The museum opened in 1993 is a unique experimental movement of the neighborhood of the Yerba Buena Gardens to associate arts, including contemporary art, films, culture, and integrate it with public life and civic engagements related to the community. It is involved with all matters related to the community, like engaging with policymakers, schools, and other institutions, leaders, artists to bring about a cohesive change acceptable and beneficial to all. The center conducts various exhibitions and programs and offers a platform to programs from domestic and international groups and individuals featuring visual arts, fine arts, performance, films, documentaries, dance, musical concerts, and others to bring together the community.

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is located at 701, Mission Street. It is closed on Mondays. It is open on Thursday from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM and other days from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in our list of top museums in San Francisco is one of the biggest museums in the US for modern and contemporary art. It has exhibits from artists around the world. The museum works directly with the artists, encourages, and facilitates the public to interact with the artists and understand their work. It is a dynamic museum in the sense that the artists constantly explore contemporary issues like immigration and border crossings and express themselves creatively to bring out these current issues in their way. Similarly, they also portray environmental issues in their expressive way to convey a strong message to the public. It also brings out Stacks, an online publication focusing on such issues. Apart from having its art collections in photography, paintings, sculptures, architecture, design, and media in seven-floor galleries, the museum also frequently hosts exhibitions on various themes.

The museum is located on the 3rd street, a few steps from the Yerba Buena Gardens. It is open from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Thursday and from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on all weekdays, other than Wednesday on which it is closed. The tickets are priced at $25 for adults, $22 for seniors, and $19 for children below 18 years.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

The de Young Museum in our list of top museums in San Francisco has one of the largest collections of artworks in America. The inventory of the collections includes American Art, African Art, Oceanic Art, Textiles, Photography, and works on paper. The American art is from the 17th century and includes paintings, sculptures, decorative art, and craft, including some great masterpieces and Rockefeller collections. The African collections include works from Sub-Saharan Africa, from the 13th century onwards. The arts of the Americas include stunning artworks like ceramics, sculptures, murals, pottery, and colorful ceramics. The Oceanic collections started along with the opening of the museum in 1895 and included artworks from the Maori tribe of New Zealand, apart from many island nations, Indonesia, and even New Guinea. The Textiles collections include around 14,000 exciting costume and textile works from around the world. The photography collections span the entire period since the beginning of the invention.

The museum is located at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden. It is accessible by many bus lines and also metro. It is open from 9:30 AM to 5:15 PM from Tuesday to Sunday.

The Palace of Fine Arts Theater was built for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915 along with 9 other palaces. Only this palace was retained, and in the 1960s it was reconstructed fully after being taken over by a private partnership company, and the huge venue is now thrown open for private events, business conventions, trade shows, conferences, and big rich weddings. The spacious venue frequently hosts art exhibitions in its space. Apart from this, after its remodeling and renovation in 1970, it now has a 1000 seat theater also which is running popular shows in the huge complex, which includes the majestic fine arts center venue, colorful gardens, a lagoon, and Greco-Roman rotunda. The lagoon now is inhabited by ducks, swans, and other aquatic animals also to make it very attractive.

The palace is located at 3305, Lyon Street. It is open from 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM every day except Mondays on which it is closed.

The Best 12 Museums in San Francisco

We have endeavored to pack in as much information as possible in our top museums in San Francisco to include the right combination of different museums, which might be of interest to you when you plan to visit the city. San Francisco has many more such places, and this list is by no means an attempt at an exhaustive tourist guide for museums. It only tries to ensure that you enjoy the flavor of the city in every possible way by covering such places in your tour itinerary. Trip.com helps you out by providing all the relevant bits and pieces of valuable information you need to make every aspect of your trip pleasant and memorable.

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