Yahoo Co-Founder Gives $25 Million to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum
SAN FRANCISCO — In a rare example of high-level cultural philanthropy from Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial elite, Jerry Yang, a Yahoo co-founder,
and his wife, Akiko Yamazaki, have pledged $25 million toward a $90-million transformation project of the Asian Art Museum here.
“Both Akiko and Jerry stand out for their support of the arts and culture sector.”
Ms. Yamazaki is the museum’s board chair, and Mr. Yang and she both collect: her main focus is Song dynasty ceramics, while he has assembled a selection of Chinese calligraphy
that was shown at the museum starting in 2012 and traveled to the Met in 2014.
The Bangkok-born, L. A.-based architect Kulapat Yantrasast, who recently transformed a Masonic Temple into the Marciano Foundation, has been overseeing the Asian Art Museum’s renovation
and expansion, which is expected to break ground this January and be completed in summer of 2019.
The most striking addition will be a new structure on top of the museum’s east wing, to be called
the Akiko Yamazaki & Jerry Yang Pavilion, featuring an 8,500 square-foot exhibition space.
This is not the Asian Art Museum’s first renovation in its current home, a 1917 Beaux-Arts building in the Civic Center
that long served as San Francisco’s main public library.