Museum of Contemporary Art , San Diego, Guia do visitante e o que fazer por perto

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, known as MCASD, is the contemporary art museum of La Jolla, set on Prospect Street above the Pacific in San Diego. Its La Jolla building grew out of a house designed by the architect Irving Gill for the philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, so you get modern art, early California architecture and an ocean view in one stop.

The story behind it

Ellen Browning Scripps was one of the great benefactors of La Jolla, and in the mid-1910s she commissioned Irving Gill to design her home on this bluff. Gill was a leading San Diego architect, known for plain white walls, clean geometry and arched openings that anticipated modernism. In the early 1940s the house was given over to the community as an art centre, and that centre grew into the museum we know today.

Over the decades the building has been expanded several times, with a major addition in the 1990s by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown and a later expansion that reworked the galleries and the way the building meets the ocean view. The result is a layered site where Gill's original rooms sit beside newer spaces built for contemporary work.

What to look for

• The clean white walls and simple arched forms of the older part of the building, which are typical of Irving Gill's restrained style.
• The contrast between the historic house and the later additions, which shows how the museum has changed over time.
• The view of the Pacific from the museum grounds and upper spaces, which is a big part of why the site feels so special.
• Large-scale works and installations in the galleries, since the programme focuses on art from the 1950s onward and changes with each exhibition.

Tips for your visit

• Allow about an hour for the galleries, longer if you want to linger over the grounds and the view.
• Check current opening hours and admission details on the museum's website before you go, as exhibitions and schedules change.
• Late afternoon is a good time to come, when the light over the ocean is soft and you can carry on to a sunset walk.
• The museum sits in the middle of La Jolla's village, so the shops and cafes of Prospect Street, the coastline and La Jolla Cove are all a short walk away.

See it on a quest

Murder Mystery: Death in the Shadows in La Jolla, San Diego brings this part of town into a mystery game. You reach the museum on foot as one stop of a longer route through La Jolla, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle right where you stand. It is a paid quest, and one ticket covers the whole group.

San Diego Detective Mystery: Infiltrate a Secret Society. is a detective-style walk through the city. As with every Questo quest, you move from place to place at your own pace, hear the story of each spot as you get there and work out a puzzle from what is in front of you. It is a paid quest, and one ticket covers the whole group.