Marin’s Famous Birkenstock Building Just Got a New Owner—the Eames Institute

That pointy-roofed midcentury building you can’t miss on a stretch of 101 north of San Francisco finally got a new owner. The Eames Institute just announced it has purchased the Birkenstock building—a famous Marin structure called such for having served as the company’s distribution centers for years—and its surrounding complex with plans to turn it into an internationally renowned art and design museum. 

"To share my grandparents’ vision with the world is the honor of a lifetime," Llisa Demetrios, granddaughter of Ray and Charles Eames and the chief curator of the Eames Institute, says in a statement. "Ray and Charles’s boundless curiosity for solving problems through design has been at the core of the Eames Institute’s mission, and this expansion will allow us to share those gifts with our community on an even larger scale."

The institute says the renovation of the 88.5-acre site and its campus, which holds the Birkenstock building and an adjacent warehouse, will include spaces for showcasing the Eames family archive, art exhibitions, maker workshops, and educational programming, though it did not specify what kinds. The grounds will also include green spaces as well as dining and retail.

Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, which renovated the Tate Modern in London, and San Francisco firm EHDD have partnered with the institute on reimagining the complex, which was originally designed by architect John Savage Bolles in the 1960s for publisher McGraw Hill. (Bolles is responsible for several prominent sites in and around San Francisco, including the Embarcadero Center and since-razed Candlestick Park.) Birkenstock moved into the Novato building in 1992 and occupied the space until 2020, with a brief vacancy from 2007 to 2012.

The Eames Institute’s acquisition marks its latest expansion, having recently moved its headquarters from Petaluma to Richmond in February of 2024. That facility serves as a workspace, archive, and gallery showing a rotating selection of more than 40,000 pieces owned by the institute.

While a focus of that space is showcasing innovative objects created by Ray and Charles, from prototypes to in-production items, the new museum is meant to proliferate the Eamses’ fearless spirit of creation. Says John Cary, president and CEO of the Eames Institute, "This extraordinary space will enable us to expand our programming and reach a broader audience, while serving as a permanent anchor for creativity and innovation in the Bay Area."

Related Reading:

The House Museum of All House Museums Reopens, and It’s Better Than Ever

With More Than 40,000 Objects, the New Eames Institute Will Show Much More Than Just Chairs