Sheriffs Star Plaza
San Francisco Jail Facility
7th and Bryant
SOMA
This paving is the work of Vicki Scuri of VSSW.
Vicki received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin in Madison
She describes herself: Collaborative, integrated design is my passion. The focus of my practice is community-based design for infrastructure, with emphasis on community identity through awareness of place, history and culture. For more than 25 years, I have participated on design teams across the US, creating holistic environments, often becoming local landmarks, reflecting collective values, shared histories and symbolic meanings that enrich and extend our lives through day-to-day experience and collective memory.
This San Francisco jail complex is located near the Hall of Justice on Seventh Street. Opened in 1994, the complex is actually two jails. This main complex jail is a “direct supervision facility [that] has become a national model for program-oriented prisoner rehabilitation.” The second, which acts as the main intake and release facility for the city, was praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Allan Temko as “a stunning victory for architectural freedom over bureaucratic stupidity.”
When the jail was built the art work came under fire. Primarily for a $22,000 couch that is in the lobby. Here is an article that ran at the time:
Around the old jail here, talk is of one thing: a handmade, jade green, 60- foot-long, $22,701 couch that will sit in the lobby of the new county jail, which is known as either a fine new facility or the Glamour Slammer, depending on who’s speaking.
Everyone agrees the couch is unique. The stylish eight-piece sectional was built by Marco Fine Furniture of San Francisco, whose other clients include Leona Helmsley, Donald Trump and the Sultan of Brunei.
The couch is not just furniture; it’s art. It was paid for by the budget stipulated for public art in any public project. Under the provisions of a 1969 city ordinance, up to 2 percent of the cost of new buildings must be spent on art accoutrements. In the case of the new jail, which cost $53.5 million, the amount was $600,000.
The couch might not have been a big deal if the city had enough money to open the jail completely, but it doesn’t. Only half of the 440-bed jail is scheduled to open in December because the city doesn’t have the funds to hire staff, in part because of extra money spent to upgrade the jail from minimum to medium security.
“The jail is over budget,” said Susan Pontious, curator of the public art program. But, she added, “that has nothing to do with us.”
Other arts officials, on the defensive, say the couch is an exemplary model of how to make public art functional. Their stance is that the city could have hung paintings or installed sculptures, but opted instead to create something practical.
Or as the builder of the sofa, Marco Martin, told a Bay Area newspaper columnist: “It’s not some big piece of metal doggy-do. At least you can sit on it.”
But the couch has made city officials miserable. “It’s not our sofa,” said Eileen Hirst, chief of staff for Sheriff Michael Hennessey, whose department will run the jail.
The address of the building is 425 7th Street