San Francisco's unique Wave Organ

What is it?

The Wave Organ is a unique artifact, part musical instrument, part environmental sculpture. It's an organ the way windchimes are chimes, and the way an aeolian harp is a harp, because it's not an organ to be played by human hands and feet, but by San Francisco Bay itself. It's also evidently a good spot for fishing and crabbing.

The Wave Organ consists of 25 pipes made of concrete-encrusted PVC, embedded in an abstract stone sculpture. Some of the pipes have their top-ends flared into individual listening horns scattered around the area, while others have their top-ends incorporated into a small listening booth, just large enough to accommodate two or three people. The bottom ends of the pipes are submerged in the Bay, where the action of waves generates the sound.

It was built in 1986 by Peter Richards and George Gonzales, as a project of the Exploratorium, at the end of the San Francisco Small Craft Harbor Jetty.

The sounds of the Wave Organ are subtle, and one has to spend a bit of time before one begins to notice them. It is apparently most active at high tide.

Getting there

Since the Wave Organ was built by the Exploratorium, back when it was located in the Palace of Fine Arts, the Palace is probably the ideal starting place for directions. If you don't know how to get to the Exploratorium, simply take the No. 30 bus all the way to the end of the line in the Marina District, or take the 28 to Richardson and Francisco.

From North end of the Palace building (the former main entrance of the Exploratorium), go out into the front parking lot, due East of the entrance, then turn North. You should be on Lyon street at this point.

Go north on Lyon, until you get to a very complicated intersection, where Doyle Drive forks off of Marina Blvd, and Lyon Street turns into a more-or-less unnamed driveway leading into a park. You should see a complicated maze of crosswalks straight ahead of you with a new park called Crissy Field to your left, and the Small Craft Harbor to your right.

Cross to the other side, and keep walking North. You should pass a restroom building on your right, with a bunch of boats tied up in a harbor beyond.

Once you've reached the root of the jetty that protects the harbor, turn right (East) onto the walkway leading to the various and sundry small boats. You'll pass a big building on your left, with a tile roof, the St. Francis Yacht Club. Eventually the walkway will end, and the road on the jetty will turn into a dirt footpath.

You'll pass a gray building marked "Golden Gate Yacht Club" on your right, about the time the paved roadway ends. Keep going East on the jetty, and right at the very end facing South, you'll find an assemblage of stone blocks and odd-looking pipes with flared mouths. YOU'RE THERE!

Wave Organ Links

The Exploratorium
The Exploratorium's own Wave Organ Page
RoadTrip America visits the Wave Organ

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