Category: Civic Center
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Rolling Reflection
February 2021 1500 Mission Street This piece sits in what the project calls the forum, it is by Sanaz Maninani. Sanaz Mazinani is an artist and educator based between San Francisco and Toronto. Mazinani works across the disciplines of photography, social sculpture, and large-scale multimedia installations, Mazinani holds an undergraduate degree from Ontario College of…
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1500 Mission Street
February 2021 This is what is left of several buildings that once sat on this site. Built in 1925, 1500 Mission was a one-story reinforced concrete industrial building originally designed in the Classical Revival style for the White Motor Company. The White Motor Company was created out of the White Sewing Machine Company. Founded by…
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Floating Points
February 2021 1500 Mission Street Shannon Finley, a Berlin- based artist, created this piece that stands by the front door to 1500 Mission, between the glass facade and a 30 foot green wall. It stands 15-foot high and is made of stainless steel, powder-coated matte black. Comprised of multiple planes set at various angles, the…
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Prevailing Winds
February 2021 1500 Mission Street “Prevailing Winds” by artist Catherine Wagner . Catherine is a San Francisco-based artist, known best for her conceptual photography. Wagner’s work often involves extensive research and, in this instance, she studied Bay Area wind patterns and then laser cut the resulting cartographic data onto eight aluminum panels. Lining the South…
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WFT at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
Polk Street Between Hayes and Grove Conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth’s is the artist behind this neon work on the western side of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Kosuth’s work was selected by the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) in 2015, to be the first public art project funded through the Public Art Trust with the…
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New Life at 77 Van Ness
77 Van Ness San Francisco Paul Gibson, born in Los Angeles in 1957, was educated at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California, in Architecture, and received his BFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Following his passion for arts, he decided to move to New York City and received…
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Authors from Latin American Roots
San Francisco Public Library Grove Street Entrance This art work of charchoal and pastel on paper and canvas is by Enrique Chagoya. It was a gift from the Mexican consulate in San Francisco. Measuring 160 inches square, the mural contains some thirty names of prominent Latino American writers and poets who have made important contributions…
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The SFPL Card Catalogue
San Francisco Public Library 3rd, 4th, and 5th Floors With the move to the new Main Library, items in the card catalog (used to access the collection for more than 100 years) have been replaced by an online computer system. Artists Ann Hamilton and Ann Chamberlain embedded these obsolete cards in plaster covering the principal diagonal wall…
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Constellation at the SFPL
San Francisco Public Library Atrium area 160 names of writers are illuminated on a wall that rises five stories behind the grand staircase in the atrium of the San Francisco Public Library. The artist’s work is inspired by a Beaux Arts tradition with origins in the Bibliotheque Saint-Genevieve in Paris (a model for the…
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Yarn Bombing Civic Center
San Francisco Civic Center Plaza These whimsical animals and are designed and installed by Jill and Lorna Watts of Knits For Life as part of the “Knitting the Commons” project. For those not familiar Yarn bombing is a type of street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than…
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Alice Aycock at the SFPL
San Francisco Main Library 100 Larkin Street 5th Floor Alice Aycock has designed a spiral stairway between the fifth and sixth floors of the suspended, glass-enclosed reading room that projects into the library’s great atrium space. The staircase wraps around a cone tipped at an angle, and as the two-story cone appears to unravel, it…
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Gloria Victis
Civic Center 505 Van Ness Edmund G. Brown State Office Building Closed Weekends The statue was a project between the Hungarian Freedom Fighters Federation of San Francisco and the Honorable Ernie Konnyu, a former Representative of the California State Assembly. The statue portrays Hungaria, the Spirit of Hungary, and symbolizes the idea of everlasting hope…
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Central Emergency and Detention Hospital
50 Dr. Tom Waddell Place previously 50 Lech Walesa previously 50 Ivy In the alley, somewhat behind the Public Health Building that dominates the corner of Polk and Grove in San Francisco’s Civic Center is a small building that was once the Central Emergency and Detention Hospital. According to the 1918 Municipal Record Volume 11…
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The Lost Art of Leo Lentelli
San Francisco Main Library Now the Asian Art Museum Sometime between 1915 and 1917, Leo Lentelli was commissioned to design five large sculptures for the facade of the Main Public Library, now the Asian Art Museum. In a March 1918 article titled “An Expression of Decorative Sculpture – Leo Lentelli,” published in The Architect and…
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Hell Mouth on Golden Gate Avenue
The corner of Franklin and Golden Gate This interpretation of the Pallazo Zuccari on the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy once graced the front entry to San Francisco Italian restaurant Vivande. Vivande was the run by Chef Carlo Middione. Middione lost his sense of taste and smell in an auto accident in Spring of 2007 and…
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Inflatable Bunnies Hop to San Francisco
Inflatable bunnies, an art installation by Australian artist Amanda Parer has stopped in San Francisco for a few days. The monumental rabbits, each sewn in nylon, inflated and internally lit. will be in San Francisco from April 4, 2016 to the 25th. The giant rabbits will travel throughout North America, making stops in Washington D.C., Toronto, New…
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Center of San Francisco
UN Plaza Civic Center What in the world is that brass cross in the middle of UN Plaza? That is Joel Pomerantz of Thinkwalks pointing to something most San Franciscans probably don’t even know is there, or why. This is the spot used to measure the distance to and from the City of San Francisco…
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83 McAllister
This is the Methodist Book Concern. The book concern, established in 1789 in Philadelphia, was the oldest publishing house in the United States and used Abington press as their trade imprint. It is now the United Methodist Publishing House and it is the largest general agency of The United Methodist Church. The Methodist Book Concern furnished reading…
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Passage of Remembrance
Memorial Court Civic Center In 1932 when the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House and Veterans Building were built the project was supposed to include a memorial to veterans. The project ran out of money, and one was never made. However, during this time the octagonal lawn in the Memorial Court has held earth…
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Exultadagio
San Francisco Conservatory of Music 50 Oak Street Civic Center Fulfilling the 1% for public art requirement for private development in San Francisco, this glass curtain wall of the music school includes 8” deep horizontal and vertical glass fins. A dichroic glass bevel at the front edge of each fin casts colored light across the…
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Rain Portal
SFPUC Building 525 Golden Gate Avenue Civic Center Rain Portal by Ned Kahn. Kahn has several pieces around San Francisco that you can read about here. Ned Kahn’s Rain Portal is located inside the lobby of the new Public Utilities building. Kahn’s Firefly graces the exterior of the building and you can read about it here. Rain…
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Peace
154 McAllister Street Civic Center According to Reka’s own website: James Reka – Melbourne, Australia Self-taught artist James Reka is a young contemporary Australian artist based in Berlin, Germany. His origins lie in the alleyways and train lines of Melbourne’s inner-suburbs where he spent over a decade refining his now-emblematic aesthetic. His character work…
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Island Fever
50 8th Street SOMA/Civic Center I am a huge fan of Lady Mags and Amanda Lynn, and they have been on this website many times. I have also been walking by this piece for quite a while, admiring it and yet not quite having a chance to take pictures when it wasn’t blocked by…
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Love and Marriage San Francisco Style
City Hall South Light Court In 2004, San Francisco General Hospital launched Hearts in San Francisco to generate revenue to support its numerous programs. This heart, in City Hall’s South light court, was part of that program. Designed by Deborah Oropallo the interlocking Heart, titled LOVE + MARRIAGE, was sponsored by Ambassador James Hormel and Timothy…
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Judge James Seawell
Second Floor City Hall Civic Center The San Francisco Call ran this article on November 8, 1898: Judge James M. Seawell. No better nomination has been made by any party than that of Judge James M. Seawell, one of the Democratic candidates for Superior Judge. During the six years he has served in that capacity…
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Dianne Feinstein
City Hall Mayors Balcony Civic Center Dianne Feinstein was the head of the Board of Supervisors on the day that Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were tragically assassinated. She instantly became Mayor. This sculpture (the second of Dianne Feinstein to sit in City Hall) was done in 1996 by Lisa Reinertson. According to…
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City Hall in Wood
City Hall South Light Court Civic Center This is one of five wooden models that Don Potts did for the 1982 AIA Convention. The pieces were later purchased by the City and four are now on display in City Hall. You can read about the first two here. Don was a meticulous artist. Another renown…
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Don Potts Amazing Wood Models
City Hall South Light Court Civic Center Pylon of the Golden Gate Bridge There are four amazing, exquisite and highly detailed wood models in the South Light Court of City Hall. They are all by Don Potts. These architectural models were designed and built in 1982 by Don Potts in commemoration of the Centennial of…
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George Moscone
City Hall Mayor’s Balcony Civic Center This bronze bust is of the late Mayor George Moscone. Moscone was assassinated by Dan White along with Harvey Milk in November 1978, a tragedy for the City of San Francisco. Moscone was our 37th mayor. The bust was done by my dear friend Spero Anargyros. Spero has a…
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Cyril Magnin
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,”…