Architect Craig Dykers on His Plans for SFMOMA and Remaking Times Square

As a founding partner of Snøhetta, an architecture practice in Oslo, Norway, New York, and now San Francisco, Craig Dykers is a co-creator of the Oslo Opera House and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt. The firm is redesigning Times Square for actual New Yorkers, expanding the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and drafting a new San Francisco home for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

Your buildings often become gathering places, social hangouts. Is that how you conceptualize them?
As architects, we often talk about the concept for something, and that’s interesting because I’ve never heard anyone walk into a building, drop to their knees, and say, “Whoa, what a f-‍-‍-ing great concept.” It just doesn’t happen. For us, the concept takes the form of a question. The question can be kind of mysterious or funny. The question can be dangerous. But the best questions, as any child will tell you, are questions that lead to other questions. And so what does this mean in terms of architecture? One of the questions we ask ourselves is, who are we making things for? Obviously we’re making them for people. People are not abstractions. We can’t always predict what people do. So as we design we’re asking, what range of reactions can we expect? The open nature of the design allows people to connect with each other in a civilized manner, even if they seek challenges.