Music Concourse - Golden Gate Park

In a city as famous for it's architecture as San Francisco, the Music Concourse still stands out as a highlight of Golden Gate Park. Added to the Nation Registry of Historic Places in 2004, the Concourse hosts free concerts throughout the summer and has impeccable landscaped grounds; which makes it worth a visit even without a concert being on.

The Music Concourse is a landscaped basin between the California Academy of Sciences and the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, hosting free concerts on Sundays during the summer and serving as a respite and picnic spot year-round for visitors to nearby cultural facilities. The oval-shaped basin was excavated in 1893 to create the Grand Court for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition, also known as the Midwinter Fair, and statuary and other relics from the exposition can still be found scattered around the concourse. The Music Concourse itself was built in 1900 to accommodate audiences for concerts at the Spreckels Temple of Music (often referred to as the Bandshell), built the same year as a gift from Claus Spreckels, the “sugar king.” The depressed elevation was intended to provide protection from summer winds, and terraces around the perimeter were designed to seat an anticipated capacity of 20,000.
The Spreckels Temple of Music and the original M.H. de Young Museum, which was built for the Midwinter Fair, were the first structures in the Music Concourse area. The California Academy of Sciences was added in 1916, and the concourse’s central 'Rideout Fountain' in 1924. sfrecpark.org/destination/golden-gate-park/music-concourse