North Beach Parking Garage

 Posted by on August 24, 2011
Aug 242011
 
North Beach – San Francisco

It is hard to believe that a website dedicated to art is going to talk about a parking garage, but that is what makes this job so fun.  This is the North Beach Garage at 735 Vallejo Street. The work was commissioned by the SF Arts Council in collaboration with the Department of Parking and Traffic under the guise of our two percent law, requiring two percent of the construction budget of a new public building have an art enrichment allocation.

 

 

Two local artists featured the faces of the Chinatown/North Beach community people in 11 ceramic steel portraits, on the exterior wall of the parking garage.

Harrell Fletcher and Jon Rubin went to neighborhood shops, offices and restaurants in search of family photographs, which they scanned and enlarged onto the durable ceramic steel.

For the garage interior, the artists collected the types of prophecies and insights found in fortune cookies. They have painted a different one on the ground at the end of each parking space.  Here are just a few of the fun sayings.
If you park in the garage, take the walk to the top, the views are spectacular.
The Bay Bridge
St. Peter and St. Paul Church with Alcatraz in the background on the left.
Coit Tower
You can read about Harrell Fletcher at his website, and Jon Rubin at his.
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  4 Responses to “North Beach Parking Garage”

  1. Oliag says:
    August 24, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    This is fantastic! What fun to find your fortune depending upon where you find a parking spot:) And the views are wonderful indeed…what a nice blue sky day when you were there.

    The New Yorker had an article about another famously designed parking garage in Miami…maybe you can link to it here http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/08/video-herzog-de-meuron-parking-garage.html

  2. RedPat says:
    August 24, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    Wonderful!

  3. Randy says:
    August 25, 2011 at 3:07 am

    I miss San Francisco. I really need to visit again.

  4. Cathy H. says:
    August 26, 2011 at 1:41 am

    What a cool place! Art and fortunes in a parking garage!! Love the views from the top! Beautiful!!

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