You’re Invited: Fifty Years of Bay Area Art, Culture & Reinvention | January 9 - March 7, 2027

"You’re Invited: Fifty Years of Bay Area Art, Culture & Reinvention" celebrates Fort Mason Center’s golden anniversary with close-up looks at the extraordinary people, organizations, and events that have made their home at this former US Army Port of Embarkation. Opening in January 1977 as a civilian nonprofit within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), Fort Mason Center welcomed Northern Californians to make something uniquely their own.

In those first years, monthly newsletters addressed readers: “You are invited to attend, to participate, to propose your own ideas – to become involved in making these solid old army buildings come alive with all the vitality and diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area.” The artists, activists, educators, entrepreneurs, and organizers who answered that call made Fort Mason Center a launchpad and a port of call for new ways to learn, come together, and act in the world.

Images:

Pheena the Fin Whale being lifted by helicopter from Fort Mason Center to Marina Green, April 17, 1977.

Fort Mason Center residents, c. 1980's; FMC archive