Search Results for “jewish” – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Search Results : jewish

Covenant by Alex Liberman

Posted by Cindy on May 30, 2019

May 302019

University of Pennsylvania
Locust Walk

Weighing over 25 tons, Covenant, the creation of Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) was commissioned as part of the university’s fulfillment of the Redevelopment Authority’s Percent for Art requirement.

Alexander Liberman’s sculpture has been described as so “wildly asymmetrical” that every change in the viewer’s angle of perception alters the apparent axes. During his long career, his sculpture became increasingly monumental, and he characterized his larger works as a kind of “free architecture” that should have the impact of a temple or cathedral. In Covenant Liberman specifically intended to convey a feeling of unity and spiritual participation. The installation in 1975 was assisted by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Alexander Semeonovitch Liberman (September 4, 1912 – November 19, 1999) was a Russian-American magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer, and sculptor. He held senior artistic positions during his 32 years at Condé Nast Publications.

Liberman was born in a Jewish family in Kiev. When his father took a post advising the Soviet government, the family moved to Moscow. Life there became difficult, and his father secured permission from Lenin and the Politburo to take his son to London in 1921.

Liberman was educated in Russia, England, and France, where he took up life as a “White Émigré” in Paris.

After emigrating to New York in 1941, he began working for Condé Nast Publications, rising to the position of editorial director, which he held from 1962 to 1994.

Only in the 1950s did Liberman take up painting and, later, metal sculpture. His highly recognizable sculptures are assembled from industrial objects (segments of steel I-beams, pipes, drums, and such), often painted in uniform bright colors. In a 1986 interview concerning his formative years as a sculptor and his aesthetic, Liberman said, “I think many works of art are screams, and I identify with screams.”

Wall Art #1012 on Mission

Posted by Cindy on March 12, 2019

Mar 122019

1400 Mission Street

Wall Drawing #1012 by Sol LeWitt

This artwork is part of San Francisco’s 1% for Art Program.

The piece covers the façade at the corner of 10th Street and Jessie Street and is the height of the ground story, and spans approximately 66 linear feet of the facade along 10th Street and 27 linear feet along Jessie Street. The original wall drawing was created in 2002 and was originally installed in a private residence in Los Angeles. The drawing was applied directly to a plaster substrate, transported, and installed on site.

The installation is a rather complicated process done by a team of artists led by Takeshi Arita. LeWitt rarely did his own installations. When you purchased a pice from LeWitt you would receive a very detailed set of plans on how to paint or install the piece. LeWitt designed his wall drawings with the intention that trained artists would follow his detailed plans to install the work.

Wall Drawing #1012

Sol LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism.

LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and “structures” (a term he preferred instead of “sculptures”) but was prolific in a wide range of media including drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, installation, and artist’s books.

LeWitt was born in Hartford, Connecticut to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His mother took him to art classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. After receiving a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949, LeWitt served in the Korean War, first in California, then Japan, and finally Korea. LeWitt moved to New York City in 1953 and set up a studio on the Lower East Side.

In 1968, LeWitt began to conceive sets of guidelines or simple diagrams for his two-dimensional works drawn directly on the wall, executed first in graphite, then in crayon, later in colored pencil and finally in chromatically rich washes of India ink, bright acrylic paint, and other materials.

Wall Drawing #1012 Sol LeWitt

The work sits on a 190-unit below market rate housing complex for homebuyers earning 100% or less of the area median income.

For an explanation of the installation take a look at this YouTube video.

WPA Map of San Francisco -Bernal, Excelsior, Ingleside and Portola Branch Libraries

Posted by Cindy on February 22, 2019

Feb 222019

Bernal Branch Library
Excelsior Branch Library
Ingleside Branch Library
Portola Branch Library

This is installment nine of the pieces of the WPA map that are being displayed as part of the joint program, Take Part, between SFMOMA and the San Francisco Library. You can read the first eight installments here.

I apologize for the poor quality of the photographs. Most every model is under plexiglass and reflects not only the lighting from above but the light streaming in through the window.

Bernal Branch Library

On the corner of Precita and Folsom is St. Anthony of Padua, which burned in the 1970s. When driving down, what was then Army Street, but is now Caesar Chavez you can still see the entry arch.

The long stretch of green is Precita Park. Established in 1894, it was then called Bernal Park, in 1973, the park was renamed after Precita Creek. It is where Carlos Santana would come to play his guitar on weekends, and the home to the first Carnaval in San Francisco.

Excelsior Branch Library

The San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living can be seen on the bottom left of the map. Originally built in 1891, the campus has, and continues to, grow and evolve. At the top right a portion of Monroe Elementary School can be seen, the school dates to the early 1900s, although the buildings have been upgraded since.

Ingleside Branch Library

In 1885, Cornelius Stagg opened a roadhouse at the southeast corner of the Ocean Road and named it the Ingleside Inn. Ingle is a Celtic term for a domestic fireplace, and the source of the words inglenook—an alcove built into a fireplace, and Ingleside, an area beside a fire. When Adolph Sutro developed the area he named it Lakeview, a name that obviously did not stick.

According to Sanborn Map 1116, the cluster of buildings in the large green expanse on Ocean Avenue is the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The buildings consisted of several cottages, a gymnasium, and a chapel.

The Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home Society was incorporated in San Francisco in 1871 to assist in the care, relief, and protection of orphans and aged Jews. The mission of the Society was supported by B’nai B’rith’s District Grand Lodge, Number 4, also located in San Francisco.

This series of buildings, designed by Alfred Henry Jacobs in 1921, were the first “cottage” model care facility in the United States. During and after WWII the now titled Homewood Terrace also housed children who had survived the Holocaust.

Although closed in 1960, it took many more years for the buildings to be torn down and new residential structures to be built.

Portola Branch Library

The greenhouses seen in the center upper portion of the map were part of the Ferrari Brothers Nursery. The building to the south of Silver Street that sits in the large expanse of green was the Christian Church of the Golden Ru

San Francisco’s water system includes 10 reservoirs and 8 water tanks that store the water delivered by the Hetch Hetchy Project and the local Bay Area water system. The 17 pump station and approximately 1,250 miles of pipelines move water throughout the system.Water to the eastside of the City distribution system is fed by two pipelines that terminate at University Mound, which can be seen in the upper center of the map.

The gymnasium of the Portola Playground, now the Palega Rec Center.

This is the penultimate entry about the WPA map, please stay around for the last entry. That will conclude the visit to every branch library in the City of San Francisco to view this wonderful project.

Maternite

Posted by Cindy on September 8, 2014

Sep 082014

Jewish Senior Living Group
Orignally known as Jewish Home of the Aged
120 Silver Avenue
Excelsior District

Ursula Malbin was born on April 12, 1917, in Berlin to Jewish parents, both doctors of medicine. While in Germany she worked as a cabinet-maker. In 1939, a few weeks before World War II, but after her family had already left the country, she fled Nazi Germany, alone, penniless and without a passport.

She found herself in Geneva when the war broke out, and there she met the sculptor Henri Paquet, whom she married in 1941. Since 1967, Ursula Malbin has divided her creative life between the Artists’ Village of Ein Hod in Israel and the village of Troinex near Geneva in Switzerland.

Maternite was a gift to the Jewish Home by Mr. and Mrs. Victor Marcus in 1970.

According to the Jewish Home Website:

The Jewish Home of San Francisco first opened its doors to residents in 1891. The complex has undergone many periods of development, including the construction of a Brutalist-style tower known as “Annex A” in 1969, designed by Howard A. Friedman, and its associated courtyard and fountain in 1970, designed by Lawrence Halprin. The courtyard is enclosed by Annex A (now known as the Goodman Building) and the Beaux Arts-inspired Main Building on an almost 9-acre site.

The design for the courtyard employs a central fountain, a generous expanse of lawn and deciduous and evergreen trees to create an urban oasis for residents. The fountain is composed of a series of cascading, rectilinear, overlapping concrete planes, animated with water that streams over them and collects in a shallow sunken pool. The concrete planes form an almost stage-like horizontal surface, upon which reclines a mother and child sculpture by Israeli artist Ursula Malbin. The fountain and its foreground apron are nestled into a shallow-sloping lawn edged with a curvilinear concrete seat wall and wide sidewalk with moveable seating. A mixture of pine trees and pollarded sycamores create a buffer along the courtyard’s edge.

The significance of Halprin’s own Jewish heritage and his role as an active member of the 1970 Jerusalem Committee, assessing the city’s master plan at the time of this commission, brings a unique cultural dimension to the importance of this Bay Area project.

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Although you must enter the main building to access the garden, the Jewish Home is extremely accommodating, and this was not a problem what-so-ever on the day that I visited.

Cyril Magnin

Posted by Cindy on January 31, 2014

Jan 312014

City Hall
South Light Court

Cyril Magnin served as San Francisco’s Chief of Protocol from 1964 until his death in 1988. He was responsible for keeping many key international consulates from moving out of San Francisco and to Los Angeles. He is seen here walking his dog Tippecanoe.

In Magnin’s 1981 autobiography, “Call Me Cyril,” opera superstar Beverly Sills is quoted as saying: “He twinkles, he’s a song-and-dance man, a sentimentalist, a tough businessman, a sucker for a hard-luck story–and one of the great philanthropists. He’s a prince of pleasure, a king of kindness, a formidable friend, and I am madly in love with him.”

Cyril Isaac Magnin (1899–1988) was one of the most prominent San Francisco businessmen of the post-World War II era, chief executive of the Joseph Magnin Co., which evolved into a multi-million dollar chain of upscale women’s clothing stores.

Personally gracious and urbane, Magnin was a veteran political fund-raiser and power broker in the Democratic Party, dating back to New Deal days. He was Treasurer of President Franklin Roosevelt’s northern California re-election campaign in 1944, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1948 (that nominated President Harry Truman) and again in 1964, when he co-chaired the Finance Committee of President Lyndon Johnson’s campaign in California.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Magnin was one of a quartet of fabulously wealthy San Francisco Jewish contributors to Democratic candidates, appreciatively called “The Green Machine” by career politicians, the others being Fairmont Hotel magnate Benjamin Swig, Lilli Ann clothing company founder Adolph Schuman, and real estate mogul Walter Shorenstein.

The painting was done by Elaine Badgley Aarnaux. While her website is sparse, this article from the San Francisco Chronicle is charming and revealing about the lady:

Elaine Badgley Arnoux, painter of mayors
By Sam Whiting
Thursday, November 1, 2012

Each mayor of San Francisco receives a letter from Elaine Badgley Arnoux with an invitation to sit for a portrait. The strategy has worked for every mayor going back toDianne Feinstein. Badgley Arnoux (her professional name), 86, would now like to advance to governors, starting with Jerry Brown.

Q: Describe your occupation?

A: I am a professional painter. In 1985, I did 100 people in San Francisco, which was shown at City Hall in 2001. I’ve painted 190 portraits of San Franciscans over a 30-year period.

Q: How do you pick your subjects?

A: Carefully. I spend a lot time debating within myself. It is based on how this person relates to the whole feeling. The shoeshine man, for instance, at Second and Townsend. Most everybody knows him who goes to the ballpark.

Q: You set up an easel where you find them on the street?

A: Oh, no. This is one thing I’m very particular about. I really want people to sit for me, so they come to my studio.

Q: How long do they have to sit there?

A: If I’m very direct that day, I can do someone in two hours.

Q: How do you know when the time is right?

A: I’m certain within myself that now I want to do this mayor. It might be after they retire and it might be before they are elected. I was able to find George Christopher after he was out of office.

Q: What was the most recent portrait you did?

A: Eight months ago, I did George Moscone. I found an excellent photograph and was able to draw him and show it to his family before it was shown in City Hall.

Q: How did Mayor Ed Lee react to the finished product?

A: He was absolutely delighted, and he was delightful to work with. He came to my studio twice.

Q: Who was the least delightful to work with?

A: Oddly enough, Willie Brown, who is generally very effusive. It was before he was mayor. He came to my studio because he was told to come, and he didn’t say a word, not one word during the whole sitting.

Q: Which mayor was most difficult?

A: The portrait of Gavin Newsom was the most difficult because he doesn’t really stand still. He moves and moves and moves.

Q: Have another mayor portrait in you?

A: Not a mayor but a governor. I would very much like to do the portrait of Gov. (Jerry) Brown. I think he has an interesting face.

Q: Latest project?

A: It’s not portraiture. It’s figurative paintings and sculptural entities. I’m going to be in a group show at a new gallery in Burlingame. It is called Gallerie Citi. I’m going to be showing a three-dimensional sculpture that includes a donkey, an elephant and Mother Goose all having tea in a voting booth.

Q: Where do you live?

A: My husband and I live in the Golden Gateway, on the sixth floor. We look out at the bridge.

Q: What is your husband’s name?

A: Harold Kozloff.

Q: So were you Elaine Badgley growing up?

A: Now we’re going to get into a sticky wicket. I was Elaine Harper. Then I was Elaine Stranahan. Then I was Elaine Badgley. Then I was Elaine Arnoux. Now I’m Elaine Kozloff. Take a deep breath.

Q: What would you buy if you could?

A: A condominium in San Francisco on a hill so that the earthquake would not topple us down.

Q: When did you arrive in San Francisco?

A: It was 1964.

Q: What do you miss about old San Francisco?

A: The buildings are now so high that they are diminishing the character of the architecture.

Q: What is the key to longevity?

A: You just work all the time, and you work with people and they give you so much of themselves. So you have a thread that goes from one person to another until it becomes a community and a city and a life.

The paining shown above was done in 1981.

St Markus Kirche

Posted by Cindy on September 11, 2013

Sep 112013

St Marks Cathedral
1111 O’Farrell Street
Fillmore/Japantown/Western Addition

Germans starting flocking to the San Francisco Bay area during the gold rush of 1849 . The dedication of the present church building in 1895 marked three decades of effort by German immigrants to establish Lutheranism in California. Rev. Frederick Mooshake from Goettingen University arrived in 1849 to minister to the immigrants. Initially, services were held in homes, then in the Congregational Church of Christ, which was later bought by Rev. Mooshake and his followers, and the First German Evangelical Lutheran Church was formed in 1859.

In 1883, Rev. Julius Fuendeling arrived and stayed for 29 years until 1912. Fuendeling was responsible for the establishment of the present church, constructed on 2 lots on O’Farrell between Franklin and Gough that were bought for $17,500. The church, which cost $56,000 to build, was dedicated on March 10, 1895. A Schoenstein organ and chandelier from Germany, donated by sugar tycoon Claus Spreckels, were transferred from the Geary St. church to the new St. Markus.

The architect was Henry Geilfuss. Geilfuss was born in Thurin, Germany in 1850. He attended architecture school in Erfurt, Weimar and Berlin, and began his architectural practice in Berlin and Schlessing, where he designed railroad bridges and related masonry structures. He came to San Francisco in 1876 where he remained in practice until at least 1910. By the late 1880s he was known in San Francisco for having designed “some of the best buildings erected here.” Geilfuss was one of the foremost practitioners of the Victorian style of residential architecture – a style that incorporated Italianate, Gothic, Eastlake, and Stick elements – that has since become synonymous worldwide with “historic San Francisco architecture.”

The name on the cornerstone, St. Markus Kirche, reflected the congregation’s German heritage. The church is a blend of Romanesque and Gothic elements of pointed gables and arches, pier buttresses, and a Rose Window. The red brick is set off by details of buff-colored brick and Bedford stone. The lower tower has an octagonal base with a conical roof, and the higher tower is squared with four upper corner turrets and a pyramidal roof. Other tower features include small arches stained glass windows, diagonal wood moldings and fleur-de-lis patterns. Beautiful stained glass windows were incorporated throughout the architectural design, containing symbols dating from both Jewish and Christian traditions presenting doctrinal concepts.

The church building was damaged in the major ’06 quake and the church’s cross melted as result of the heat from the fires that swept the city just east on Franklin. The devastating fires stopped just short of consuming St. Mark’s. In 1944 the chancel was completely refurbished for the 50th Anniversary of the church. In 1947 the interior was renovated and a new Moeller organ was installed. A few years later there were renovations to the altar, and in 1949 the centennial of St. Mark’s was celebrated. The Ascension window was installed around 1950.

In 1971 in recognition of its historical and architectural significance St. Mark’s was designated San Francisco Registered Landmark #41. A new front entry plaza with ramp, complementing the architectural style, was constructed in 1987.

Following the major Loma Prieta earthquake on October 17, 1989 (the quake destroyed the chandelier brought from the 1863 church), the city mandated that all unreinforced masonry buildings throughout San Francisco must be seismically retrofitted for safety. This requirement began approximately 15 years of many fundraising efforts to completely restore the aging building and retrofit it for earthquake safety. In 1995 Garrison Keillor gave a rousing benefit performance for an early restoration fundraiser. Substantial income came from refinancing Martin Luther Tower (the 121-unit affordable senior housing project built by the church in the mid-sixties), and ongoing capital campaign fundraising. Additionally, scenes for the Hollywood movie “RENT” were filmed in the sanctuary just prior to the church’s closure in June 2005 for the $11 million extensive renovation.

Soon after renovation work began, a time capsule was discovered by a worker under the church foundation. The copper strongbox was in a large sandstone block snuggled under an arched brick niche. On October 9, 2005, the time capsule was opened and provided exciting glimpses into the past. The fragile water-damaged contents included several San Francisco newspapers in German and English, a German hymnal, a German copy of the Augsburg Confession, and 1863 US silver half dollar coin minted in San Francisco. The newspapers were dated 1863, and the time capsule was probably brought from the previous church on Geary Street during construction of the present church. Church archives indicate there is another time capsule sealed in 1894, probably encased within the old cornerstone of the present church.

The church was closed from June 2005 until December 2006 for the extensive seismic work and restoration. In honor of this effort, St. Mark’s was awarded a 2007 Preservation Design Award by the California Preservation Foundation.

The tracker organ made by Taylor & Boody Organbuilders in Virginia, which had been installed in the balcony of the sanctuary, was dedicated on March 25, 2007.

Much of the history of the church comes from their website.

Knights Templar Building

Posted by Cindy on July 25, 2013

Jul 252013

2135 Sutter Street
Western Addition

This steel reinforced building with brick exterior walls trimmed in lots of terra cotta was designed by Matthew O’Brien and Carl Werner in the architectural style known as the Jacobean Phase of Medieval Revival. It was built in 1905 and 1906-1907.

The building has been home to two institutions, the Knights Templar and the Baptist Church. The building was originally built for the Golden Gate Commandery #16 of the Knights Templar, a masonic order at the turn of the century. In the 1950’s there was a decline of masonic and other fraternal groups in the city, possibly as a result of a movement towards the suburbs, and the Knights Templar moved to a smaller building.

The building was then bought by the Macedonia Missionary Baptist church in1950.

Martin Luther King Jr. preached at the Church in the late fifties and early sixties, making the church the center of much of the activities that took place regarding the civil rights movement.

O’Brien & Werner had their offices at 1683 Ellis Street in San Francisco. Between the two of them they designed and built several San Francisco movie palaces like the Orpheum, the Tivoli Opera House (later the Columbia), the Hippodrome, Golden Gate Theater, The Princess Theater, and the Valencia Theater. They designed the Golden Eagle Hotel and three buildings in the Alamo Square Historic District.

Carl Werner was born in 1875 in Philadelphia and was at one time the unofficial architect for the city of Alameda. Werner was a mason and it is possibly one reason that Werner and O’Brien received the commission.

Look at the wonderful terra cotta faces that grace the building. The sculptural elements are drawn from both the Knights Templar imagery and Gothic architecture.

This building was deemed San Francisco Landmark #202 in 1993

The Knights Templar is an international philanthropic chivalric order affiliated with Freemasonry. Unlike the initial degrees conferred in a Masonic Lodge, which only require a belief in a Supreme Being regardless of religious affiliation, the Knights Templar is one of several additional Masonic Orders in which membership is open only to Freemasons who profess a belief in the Christian religion. The full title of this Order is The United Religious, Military and Masonic Orders of the Temple and of St John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta. The word “United” in this title indicates that more than one historical tradition and more than one actual Order are jointly controlled within this system. The individual Orders ‘united’ within this system are principally the Knights of the Temple (Knights Templar), the Knights of Malta, the Knights of St Paul, and only within the York Rite, the Knights of the Red Cross. The Order derives its name from the historical Knights Templar, but does not claim any direct lineal descent from the original Templar order.

The historical Knights Templar trace their origin back to shortly after the First Crusade. Around 1119, a French nobleman from the Champagne region, Hugues de Payens, collected eight of his knight relatives including Godfrey de Saint-Omer, and began the Order, their stated mission to protect pilgrims on their journey to visit the Holy Places. They approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, who allowed them to set up headquarters on the Temple Mount. The Dome of the Rock, at the centre of the Mount, was understood to occupy the site of the Jewish Temple. Known to Christians throughout the Muslim occupation of Jerusalem as the Holy of Holies, the Dome of the Rock became a Christian church, the Templum Domini, the Temple of the Lord. But the Templars were lodged in the Aqsa Mosque, which was assumed to stand on the site of Solomon’s Temple. Because the Aqsa mosque was known as the Templum Solomonis, it was not long before the knights had encompassed the association in their name. They became known as the Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici – the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, which was shortened to “Knights Templars”.

William Tecumseh Sherman and the Bank of Lucas, Turner

Posted by Cindy on July 24, 2013

Jul 242013

800-804 Montgomery Street
Jackson Square

The Bank of Lucas, Turner and Company was designed in the Italianate style typical of early San Francisco. The classical façade faces Montgomery Street, the main business street at the time. The ground floor is built from well cut and fitted granite blocks. The granite is not from California, and is variously said to be from the eastern United States or from China.

It was built in 1853-1854 by Keyser and Brown, after designs by Reuben Clark, architect for the Bank of Lucas, Turner and Company, under the supervision of William Tecumseh Sherman, later to become General of the (Union) Armies during the Civil War. Sherman stayed on to manage the bank. The owner was J.N. Lucas, resident partner of the bank, a well-known St. Louis firm of the day. The lot had been bought from James Lick for $31,000. Lick had paid $3,000 for a larger parcel, from which this was carved in 1848. Other parts of this larger lot were later given by Lick to the Trustees of the Protestant Orphan Asylum, Society of California Pioneers and a volunteer fire company.

The bulding cost $53,000 to build, a large sum for the day.

The Bank of Lucas, Turner and Company moved into their impressive new building during the summer of 1854, but despite surviving the run on banks of 1855, that closed most every other banking establishment in San Francisco, Lucas, Turner and Company was closed by 1857. Sherman moved back to New York to manage a Lucas, Turner branch there.

Ex-Mayor Brenham had his office here in 1856. In 1860 William Blanding, a captain of the South Carolina Volunteers in the Mexican War and US District Attorney in San Francisco, became the primary tenant. Blanding was instrumental in introducing the silkworm culture into California.

In 1870 the movement of the business district toward Market Street, left this area of town in a downward market, and in 1900 the building became the property of the daughter of first Jewish California State Supreme Court Justice (1852-1857) Solomon Heydenfeldt.

In 1906, Eiffel Tower, a French restaurant occupied the ground floor with lodging above.

The 1906 Earthquake and Fire damaged the third story which was removed. The restaurant remained until 1924, the lodgings even longer.

A sausage factory shared part of the ground floor in the 1920’s. In later years, a Chinese soy sauce factory was located here.

In the 1950’s, with the revival of Jackson Square for the design trade, the building was converted for use by decorators. The building now houses one of the finest Architectural Book Stores one can encounter William Stout Books.

A San Francisco Jewel

Posted by Cindy on May 14, 2013

May 142013

2266 California
Pacific Heights
Sherith Israel Synagogue
“Loyal Remnant of Israel”

On a whim, a photographer friend of mine, Lisa, suggested we stop in and take a look at the Sherith Israel Synagogue. She has been documenting its amazing details for posterity, and I had never been inside. What an incredible adventure and I am truly grateful to have been introduced to this architectural and artistic gem that holds so much San Francisco history.

Sherith Israel was designed by Albert Pissis. Pissis (1842-1914) was the son of a French physician who immigrated first to Mexico and then to San Francisco in 1858. Pissis was born in Mexico. He graduated from secondary school in San Francisco and went to work for architect William Mooser. He then attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts between 1872 and 1876, being one of the first San Franciscans to do so. After his return to San Francisco, his success with the 1892 Hibernia Bank design led to another commission with a grand dome, the Emporium Department Store in 1896.

Completed in 1905, the synagogue is an eight-sided building with a beautiful dome rising 120 feet above the street, The interior is magnificently decorated with stenciled frescoes and opalescent stained glass windows.

Since the structure withstood the 1906 earthquake it housed San Francisco’s Superior Court for two years after the quake. It was the setting for the corruption trials of political boss Abraham Rueff (known as Abe Ruef). Ruef was an American lawyer and politician. He gained notoriety as the political boss behind the administration of Mayor Eugene Schmitz in the period of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. On December 6, 1906, Ruef was arraigned. “As the indictments were read out by the clerk, Ruef made clear his disdain for the proceedings by standing with his back to the judge.” During the period of his trial, Ruef occupied offices in The Columbus Tower (now the Sentinel Building). In February 1907 Ruef pleaded “not guilty”. On March 18, 1907, the Supervisors confessed before a grand jury to “receiving money from Ruef in connection with the Home Telephone, overhead trolley, prize fight monopoly, and gas rates deals. In exchange, “they were promised complete immunity and would not be forced to resign their offices. The grand jury then returned 65 indictments against Ruef for bribery of the supervisors.”

In 1945, Sherith Israel provided the setting for a meeting of national Jewish organizations to commemorate the founding of the United Nations.

The building survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake unscathed as well. Nevertheless, the city passed a law requiring all unreinforced masonry places of public assembly to meet stringent seismic safety standards, and despite its great track record, Sherith Israel had to comply.

The exterior walls are brick, standing on brick footings. These bricks are clad in Colusa sandstone, a popular material of the time that is highly porous and susceptible to the elements, it had experienced considerable spalling (delamination). At some point in the late 1950s, the building had been painted a salmon color, probably to cover patching work. What was not known in the 1950s was that paint would only accelerate the deterioration of the sandstone by trapping water beneath it. Over time, the paint began literally pulling off the top layer of stone. The paint has been removed from all but the dome at this time.

Berkeley architectural and planning firm ELS was brought in to help with the seismic retrofitting and repairs. You can read an in-depth article on all of the work that was done here. The synagogue was also the subject of an Architectural Preservation Technology Bulletin that can be read here in its entirety.

“In preparation for the building’s centennial in 2005, several art historians studied Sherith Israel’s stained glass windows. The identity of the artist/s was unknown until congregants Joan Libman and Ian Berke discovered an invoice for $1100 made out to Emile Pissis.”

The stained glass windows were designed by Emile M. Pissis, the architect’s brother. Emile was born in San Francisco on March 10, 1854. A lifelong resident of San Francisco he was a co-founder of the San Francisco Art Association in 1871. A man of wealth, he never sold a picture and seldom exhibited. He remained a bachelor and spent his leisure time roaming the Marin hills, fishing, hunting, and painting. Many of his landscapes and portraits were lost in the 1906 earthquake and fire. Emile maintained a luxurious Nob Hill studio-apartment at 18 Pleasant Street. Upon his death, he was cremated and his ashes thrown to the winds above Marin County by airplane. One of his award-winning paintings, “Discovery of the Bay by Gaspar de Portola,” was recently discovered hidden away in the museum of the Society of California Pioneers when Sherith Israel began to research its artistic history. Sadly, the only surviving work by Emile Pissis consists of the Sherith Israel windows, two paintings at the Society of California Pioneers and nine watercolors held by the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco.

The prolific paintings and frescoes that grace the synagogue were created by and under the tutelage of, Attilio Moretti. Moretti was born in Milan, Italy on April 16, 1851. Moretti moved to San Francisco with his family in 1865. By the late 1880s, he was sharing a studio with Bernardo Trezzini. Well known as a painter, Moretti also designed altars and memorial chapels. In an unpublished manuscript, Emile Pissis observed, “(Attilio) Moretti was busy painting saints and angels in the Catholic churches throughout the state.” Moretti’s obituary describes him as “… one of the best-known men in his line in California.” Among his last projects was a chapel in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma under the direction of the late Archbishop Patrick Riordan, a close friend, and admirer. Neither his Holy Cross decoration nor his painting in the chapel of Notre Dame des Victoires Church still exists. The Sherith Israel frescoes are believed to be the last examples of Moretti’s prolific career. He died in San Francisco on March 27, 1915

During the restoration of the 2000’s artist, Beate Bruhl was hired to restore stenciled decorative painting on the interior walls and ceilings in the areas that had been damaged by water intrusion over the years. In some areas, original stencils were discovered under layers of paint, knowledge that will help with future restorative work.

Other than the blue of the dome, most colors of the frescoes and stencils are rust reds, ochres, golds, and yellows, characteristic colors of the English Arts and Crafts Movement.

ELS is currently working with the congregation to replace the original 1905 carpet with custom woven carpet to match the original. Evidence that the sanctuary carpet is original to the building was found by reviewing congregational records from 1905, currently stored in the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. They found an original 1905 receipt for the carpet, carefully filed in the archives. The receipt gave them the name of the mill, which matched the weave mark on the back of the carpet. Lisa told me that many of the cushions that line the pews are also original. There is mattress ticking on the bottom, and yes, they are filled with horse hair.

There are so very many unifying design elements in the synagogue, it makes for a peaceful and delightful experience. There were tiny columns with capitals everywhere, as well as a unifying theme of knots in both the windows and the frescoes.

The steel frame of the sanctuary is enclosed in lath and plaster to create a composition familiar in Byzantine, Romanesque and Renaissance architecture of an ecclesiastical space. This particular space consists of piers (a column designed to support concentrated load), pendentives (One of a set of curved wall surfaces which form a transition between a dome (or its drum) and the supporting masonry), a drum (A circular or polygonal wall supporting a dome or cupola), and a dome. The side and rear arches that frame this central space are vaulted, framing large stained glass windows and covering galleries. The arch motif is repeated and each arch together with the ring of the drum and the front edges of the galleries, are outlined in incandescent light bulbs, totaling more than one thousand in all.

The synagogue has been given an historic designation. You can read the entire report regarding the building and its significance here.

The Art of the Jessie Street Substation

Posted by Cindy on January 9, 2013

Jan 092013

The Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Substation
222-226 Jessie Street
Market Street/Yerba Buena Gardens

Tucked away in a dead-end alley between Market and Mission, is one of San Francisco’s few great examples of the architectural possibilities of the brick facade. Originally built in 1881, and subsequently enlarged twice, the substation was damaged in a fire in February, 1906, and almost destroyed in the earthquake and fire of April, 1906. Rebuilt in 1907, the building owes its present character to Willis Polk, at that time head of the San Francisco office of D. H. Burnham and Company, the Chicago firm that had prepared the 1905 plan for the conversion of San Francisco to a model of the “city beautiful” along the lines of Paris and Washington. As a result, it is not altogether surprising that the architectural ideas of Polk and Burnham should have been applied to an electric substation in a South-of-Market alley.

This noble structure is a simple (but quite sophisticated) exercise in the development of balance, line, and texture. Though the eye focuses on the ornamental, vertical, and symmetrical piercings and moldings, it is the horizontal line of the rough, red wall that catches the breath. Yet, of course, it is the elaborate applied inventions that make the plain surface more than just another brick wall. This is a building that many San Franciscans have never seen, and it is worth going out of one’s way to look at it. The above Here Today, San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage by Roger Olmsted and T.H. Watkins, 1969.

The Substation, which served as a power station until 1924 is now part of the Contemporary Jewish Museum (designed by Daniel Liebeskind). This lovely pediment sculpture is part of the original substation building.

facade_lg

The pediment sculpture is located above the left door and features matte-glazed terra cotta cherubs holding garlands above a plaque that reads 1907, the date the original building was completed. Restoration of the brick facade took six months during which time damaged pieces of terra cotta were built out using fiberglass and putty. The fixtures were then re-glazed to protect them from future environmental damage.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum addition

There are a lot of beautiful ornamentation on buildings throughout San Francisco, and like much of it, it was done by artists and craftspeople that left us with a legacy but not their name.

San Francisco’s Holocaust Memorial

Posted by Cindy on July 24, 2012

Jul 242012

Land’s End

Legion of Honor

Holocaust Memorial by George Segal

Time has taken its’ toll on this memorial. The hand on the man above was not to touch the wire as they were electrified.

This memorial shows ten figures sprawled, recalling post-war photographs of the camps. Placement of this work was controversial. The choice to look over such a truly beautiful landscape recalling death in a rather graphic way was not acceptable to many. The artist however, insisted that the viewer might consider death while facing towards the monument and life while facing towards the Golden Gate.

Segal’s work is executed in bronze and painted white. It has been the subject of grafitti, but Segal mentioned, at a 1998 conference at Notre Dame University, that he did not find this a problem since grafitti was a reminder that problems of prejudice have not been solved.

Segal’s ensemble of bodies is not random. One can find a “Christ-like” figure in the assemblage, reflecting on the Jewishness of Jesus, as well as a woman holding an apple, a reflection on the idea of original sin and the biblical connection between Jews and Christians, and raising the question of this relationship during the Holocaust.

The essential figure of the man standing at the fence is probably derived from Margaret Bourke-White’s famous Life Magazine 1945 photograph of the liberation of Buchenwald.

Another plaster version of Segal’s “The Holocaust” can be found at The Jewish Museum in New York.

George Segal (November 26, 1924 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter and sculptor associated with the Pop Art movement. He was presented with a National Medal of Arts in 1999.

Although Segal started his art career as a painter, his best known works are cast lifesize figures and the tableaux the figures inhabited. In place of traditional casting techniques, Segal pioneered the use of plaster bandages (plaster-impregnated gauze strips designed for making orthopedic casts) as a sculptural medium. In this process, he first wrapped a model with bandages in sections, then removed the hardened forms and put them back together with more plaster to form a hollow shell. These forms were not used as molds; the shell itself became the final sculpture, including the rough texture of the bandages. Initially, Segal kept the sculptures stark white, but a few years later he began painting them, usually in bright monochrome colors. Eventually he started having the final forms cast in bronze, sometimes patinated white to resemble the original plaster.

I am a very big fan of Segal’s work being moved to tears while standing in front of his “Bread Line” sculpture at the FDR Memorial in Washington D.C..

While these are at the Johnson Atelier. Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ so the background is different they are the same figures as the FDR Memorial.

Liberty Bell of Mission Dolores Park

Posted by Cindy on July 18, 2012

Jul 182012

Mission Dolores Park

The Mission

The plaque reads:

Mexico’s Liberty Bell

(A Replica)

On the early morning of Sunday September 16th a.d. 1810, Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla rang the bell of his church in the town of Dolores, in the now state of Guanajuato calling the people to mass and to bear arms against the Spanish yoke of 300 years. The original bell stands now above the central balcony of the National Palace in the City of Mexico where the president rings it at exactly eleven o’clock in the evening of each September 16th in a traditional ceremony called “El Grito” – The “Cry” of Independence

Plaza and monument presented to the City of San Francisco by Lic. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, President of the United Mexican States September 16th 1966

On May 17th, 2009 the San Francisco Chronicle ran this interesting article:

This seems like heresy, given the apartment prices around Dolores Park, but that gloriously hip plot of land connecting the Mission District to the Castro neighborhood was once deemed “cheap” enough to house the dead. According to Charles Fracchia, president emeritus of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, when Dolores Park (then Mission Dolores) was purchased by Congregation Sherith Israel for a Jewish cemetery in 1861, the area was “well out of town.” “There were virtually no residences in around the park,” he said.

Like the 15 to 20 other cemeteries in San Francisco, the graves were moved when property values got too high to justify burial grounds. (Parking lots, on the other hand …) After the city of San Francisco bought the land for nearly $300,000 in 1905, Dolores Park was briefly a refugee territory for people stranded by the 1906 earthquake and the accompanying fires.

Nowadays, the park has become the place to enjoy a sunny afternoon in the Mission. As the wide variety of park visitors indicates – from Latino families to young hipsters to Castro gays – it sits at the intersection of a number of San Francisco demographic groups. And it always has. Fracchia says that even while the park’s two statues – one the Mexican liberty bell and the other of Miguel Hidalgo, the George Washington of Mexico – speak to the Latin American heritage of the area, the immediate environs were a haven for the Irish community for much of the first half of the 20th century. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Museum Row – Stream of Vessels

Posted by Cindy on January 13, 2012

Jan 132012

50 Third Street

Ducca Restaurant Walkway

Museum Row

These are in the walkway between Ducca Restaurant and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. They are titled Stream of Vessels, done in 1997 by David Nash of charred oak.

David Nash is a British sculptor based in Blaenau Ffestiniog. He is known for works in wood and shaping living trees. His large wood sculptures are sometimes carved or partially burned to produce blackening. His main tools for these sculptures are a chainsaw and axe to carve the wood and a blowtorch to char the wood.

He attended Brighton College from 1959 to 1963, then Kingston College of Art from 1963 to 1967 and the Chelsea School of Art as a postgraduate from 1969 to 1970.

Museum Row – Les Funambules

Posted by Cindy on January 12, 2012

Jan 122012

50 Third Street

Ducca Restaurant walkway

Museum Row

Attached to the Westin Hotel is Ducca Restaurant. They have an open walkway between 3rd street and the Jewish Museum. In that walkway is seating and dining. Throughout that area is art.

This piece is “Les Funambules” by Charles Ginnever, done in Bronze in 1991.

Ginnever is an American sculptor. He was born in San Mateo, California, in 1931. In 1957, he received his BA from the San Francisco Art Institute and received his MFA from Cornell University in 1959. He started working with canvas and steel scraps painted with bright patterns. The movement toward Minimalism saw the use of color fade and he focused on steel shapes consisting of triangles and trapezoids that cause his work to change shape as the viewer moves around it.

Mission District – Bartlett Street Mural

Posted by Cindy on August 31, 2011

Aug 312011

Mission District – San Francisco

85 Bartlett Street

Right next to the bright and colorful Amate Mission mural by Jet Martinez, is this fascinating mural. It is a partial reproduction of an original found behind the altar of Old Mission Dolores. The original was believed to be painted by Mission Indians somewhere between 1791 and 1796.

Here is all the information in the Jet Martinez’s own words:

“When Ben [Ben Wood, the freelance artist who, along with archaeologist Eric Blind, photographed the mural by lowering a camera behind the 18th-century altarpiece blocking it from view] approached me, I didn’t want to do it. I grew up in Mexico. I saw a lot of murals of priests saving the souls of kneeling Indians. And this mural is really about the Catholic missionaries’ oppression of the natives. They painted those hearts — the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Sacred Heart of Mary — because that’s what the missionaries told them to do.

But my New Year’s Eve resolution was to be more open. Ben wanted me to restore the mural to what it would have been, but I didn’t want to. Huge sections were missing. To imagine what the mural would have been [would be] to put my own interpretation in it. I left the gaps.Working with two other painters [Bunnie Reiss and Ezra Eismont] helped me remove myself a little. People would ask me, “Why are there no Native Americans working on this mural?” Because we had one Mexican-American guy, one German guy and one Jewish woman.I thought, Native Americans were already forced to paint this once. We’re not going to make them paint it again.”

I apologize for the angle on this, but the sidewalk is narrow, and lined with cars.