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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Art museum and event venue in California

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse communities. YBCA programs year-round in two landmark buildings—the Galleries and Forum by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and the adjacent Theater by American architect James Stewart Polshek and Todd Schliemann. Betti-Sue Hertz served as Curator from 2008 through 2015.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Yerba Buena Center for the Arts” as art museum and event venue in California. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 2015—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Yerba, Buena and Center can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as art museum and event venue in California. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2008 and 2015.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Yerba Buena Center for the Arts”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Yerba Buena Center for the Arts primary sources, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts archive and Yerba research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Yerba Buena Center for the Arts”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Yerba Buena Center for the Arts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.