Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

The Movie Palaces of Mission Street

Posted by Cindy on February 23, 2013

Feb 232013

The Mission District Before Netflix, streaming videos and television, most people got their entertainment at a vaudeville/movie theater. These “palaces” were places to see and be seen. The Mission district was the home to at least five theaters whose marquees still can be seen amongst the graffiti and signage that marks the street. Of these theaters, the El Capitan Theater was the crown jewel. Opened on June 29, 1928, it seated 2578 patrons. The El Capitan was designed by famed theater designer Gustave Albert Lansburgh. Lansburgh was the principal architect of theaters all along the west coast from 1900 to 1930. Continue Reading

Anish Kapoor in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on February 22, 2013

Feb 222013

235 2nd Street SOMA Financial District Making the World Many by Anish Kapoor – Stainless Steel Making the World Many is part of the 1% for Arts and POPOS programs of San Francisco. While viewable through the building window, the piece is available for closer viewing from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm M-F. Anish Kapoor, (born 12 March 1954) is an Indian-born British sculptor born in Mumbai. Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design. He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice Biennale in Continue Reading

Core by Charles Arnoldi

Posted by Cindy on February 20, 2013

Feb 202013

101 2nd Street SOMA – Financial District Core by Charles Arnoldi – Acrylic on Canvas Core is a result of the POPOS and 1% for Art programs of San Francisco. While viewable through the buildings glass it is available for closer viewing from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm M-F. Charles Arnoldi was born April 10, 1946 in Dayton, Ohio. While visiting a girlfriend’s grandmother in New York, he took the opportunity to view works by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Observing their smudges, smears, and imperfections, he sensed that he too was capable of such work, and decided to attend art school. Arnoldi Continue Reading

San Francisco County Jail

Posted by Cindy on February 19, 2013

Feb 192013

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 Continue Reading

Chinese in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on February 18, 2013

Feb 182013

950 Washington Street Chinatown This mural sits on the wall of the Commodore Stockton School. The School has a very rich history. Formed in 1859 it was originally called the Chinese School. It was created for chinese only students as they were not allowed in the public schools. In 1885 the school was renamed the Oriental School to allow Koreans and Japanese to attend. In 1924 the school was renamed Commodore Stockton. Alice Fong Yu was its first Chinese teacher and children were banned from speaking Chinese. The mural depicts the Chinese of San Francisco. It was painted in 1987 Continue Reading

A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

Posted by Cindy on February 15, 2013

Feb 152013

A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

343 Sansome Street The Financial District Four Seasons by Joan Brown This tiled obelisk is by Joan Brown. Joan Brown was an American figurative painter who was born in San Francisco and lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the “second generation” of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. She studied at the California School of Fine Art (now San Francisco Art Institute), where her teachers included Elmer Bischoff. Her sculpture is not as well known, and yet she did several of these obelisks, there are at least 3 in San Francisco. These include the Pine Continue Reading

Jackson Brewery an Old San Francisco Tradition

Posted by Cindy on February 14, 2013

Feb 142013

Jackson Brewery an Old San Francisco Tradition

Folsom and 11th SOMA There have been over 79 breweries in San Francisco’s history, most of them either lost to the 1906 earthquake or in the two years following the 1919 passage of the 21st amendment. These lost brew houses included the North Star Brewery at Filbert and Sansome, the Globe Brewing Company at Sansome and Greenwich and the Jackson Brewing Company. Yet despite the fact that the Jackson Brewing Company did not survive Prohibition, its building still stands. 1906 Damaged Jackson Brewing Company (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library) The Jackson Brewing Company was owned by the William A. Fredericks family from 1867 Continue Reading

Old Blueprints take on a New Look

Posted by Cindy on February 13, 2013

Feb 132013

Muni Metro East Yard Pier 80 Bayview This view, taken through a fence, is as close as one will get to the art work at the new Muni Metro East maintenance facility. * These photos I took from the Pulp Studios website. I am going to simply copy directly what they have to say about these pieces as the information is excellent. “The beauty of rail car engineering details is revealed in these historic blueprints from the 19th and 20th centuries.” Artist Anita Margrill’s statement rings true upon the very first site of the two towering glass curtain walls on Continue Reading

The Drum Bridge at the Japanese Tea Garden

Posted by Cindy on February 12, 2013

Feb 122013

Japanese Tea Garden Golden Gate Park San Francisco’s first Japanese Tea Garden was originally developed by art-dealer George Turner Marsh as part of the 1894 Midwinter Fair, an event that brought the City by the Bay into the international limelight. Shinshichi Nakatani was selected to design and build the Drum Bridge (Taiko Bashi). He built the bridge in Japan, dismantled it and brought back with him. Halfway through completion, the Expo ran out of funds. Shinshichi left San Francisco and returned to Japan. He sold off personal land holdings and brought the money back with him to complete the project. Continue Reading

Japanese Tea Garden

Posted by Cindy on February 11, 2013

Feb 112013

Japanese Tea Garden Golden Gate Park The Japanese Tea Garden was created by George Turner Marsh as a “Japanese Village” feature of the 1894 MidWinter Exposition. Marsh, an Australian, had lived for several years in Japan and had an interest in traditional Japanese Gardens. To create the village, he brought materials and hired craftsmen directly from Japan. It is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. The Tea Garden was designed and constructed by Makoto Hagiwara. It used the “Hill and Water” landscape concept to create a traditional Japanese rural style garden. At the close of the exposition, Continue Reading

The Home Telephone Building

Posted by Cindy on February 9, 2013

Feb 092013

333 Grant Avenue Chinatown Union Square Ernest Albert Coxhead of Coxhead and Coxhead has given the city of San Francisco many of its finest buildings — one sits at 333 Grant Avenue, San Francisco landmark #141. The Home Telephone Company was San Francisco’s first telephone exchange site. The building, built in 1908 in the Mannerist style, towers regally over its neighbors. Detail of the entrance to the Home Telephone Building. The Home Telephone Company was designed for one purpose, thus the undivided treatment of the façade lends a unity to the building rarely seen in one so large. The Corinthian Continue Reading

Amazarasti-No Hotoke

Posted by Cindy on February 8, 2013

Feb 082013

Japanese Tea Garden Golden Gate Park At the eastern end of Long Bridge, inside the Japanese Tea Garden sits this magnificent statue. It is “Amazarasti-no Hotoke” meaning “The Buddha that sits throughout the sunny and rainy weather without shelter”. The figure was cast in 1790 at Tajima, Nara Prefecture, on Honshu for the Taioriji Temple. It passed from one Japanese collector to the next until is was purchased by A. L. Gump in 1928. It sat in the downstairs Oriental Court of the Post Street Gump’s store until remodeling banished it to storage. When a wooden Buddha in the Garden Continue Reading

Islais: From Creek to Sewer to Creek

Posted by Cindy on February 7, 2013

Feb 072013

Islais Creek Bayview/Hunter’s Point It is known as Third and Army by skateboarders. Longshoreman call it Pier 84. Locals just think of it as Islais Creek. No matter its name, it is an area experiencing ongoing urban and environmental renewal. Islais Creek originally flowed for 3.5 miles from the hills of San Francisco into the Bay. The area now called Islais Creek Channel is an inlet of San Francisco Bay located in the Central Waterfront area between Potrero Hill and Bayview / Hunters Point. The area was once a vast salt marsh. Over the course of the 19th and 20th Continue Reading

Guardians of Ping Yuen

Posted by Cindy on February 6, 2013

Feb 062013

711 Pacific Chinatown Ping Yuen Housing Originally 8 terracotta Foo dogs graced this gateway. Chinese guardian lions, known as Shishi or Imperial guardian lion, and often called “Foo Dogs” in the West, are a common representation of the lion in pre-modern China. They have traditionally stood in front of Chinese Imperial palaces, Imperial tombs, government offices, temples, and the homes of government officials and the wealthy, from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and were believed to have powerful mythic protective benefits. The artist Mary Erckenbrack researched traditional Chinese animals before designing the dogs. Mary Erkenbrack was born in Seattle, Washington on Nov. 30, 1910, Erckenbrack was raised in Rio De Continue Reading

The Hunter Dunlin Building in the French Romanesque Style

Posted by Cindy on February 5, 2013

Feb 052013

The Hunter Dunlin Building in the French Romanesque Style

111 Sutter Street The Financial District 111 Sutter Street, or the Hunter Dulin Building, is a terra-cotta clad building modeled on a French château. This 22-story French Romanesque building is topped with a 38-foot high mansard roof sporting both dormers and gables. The building was designed by New York architecture firm Shultze and Weaver for Los Angeles brokerage house Hunter Dulin. When it was built in 1927, it was the fourth-highest building in San Francisco. Shultze and Weaver were known for such American icons as the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, the Biltmore in Los Angeles and the Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida. Continue Reading

Familia

Posted by Cindy on February 4, 2013

Feb 042013

Potrero del Sol Park Potrero Hill Potrero at 25th Street Familia is by Victor Reyes, who has many pieces around San Francisco. On June 9, 2011 the San Francisco Examiner ran this article about the mural: A community that came together to solve the problem of persistent graffiti at a neighborhood park celebrated the unveiling of a mural painted in the hope of staving off vandalism. Potrero del Sol Park, which is a favorite among skaters and schoolchildren, is bordered by Buena Vista Elementary School and a building maintained by San Francisco General Hospital. Taggers constantly targeted a wall of Continue Reading

SOMA Grand’s Glass Mosaic

Posted by Cindy on February 1, 2013

Feb 012013

1160 Mission Street SOMA SOMA Grand Composed of 390 panels, most about 2-by-7 feet and 1/4-inch thick, this mural is titled “Realm”. It is the biggest piece of glass art in the city. Coming in at three stories tall, it cost $800,000. The piece is part of the 1% for art program of San Francisco and was created by Dorothy Lenehan. Dorothy Lenehan founded Lenehan Architectural Glass in 1995 after a years-long tenure with Narcissus Quagliata’s acclaimed glass studio in Oakland, including 10 years as studio manager. After the Quagliata Studio relocated to Mexico City in 1995, Dorothy moved her Continue Reading

Bufano at Westside Courts

Posted by Cindy on January 31, 2013

Jan 312013

Westside Courts Housing Project 2501 Sutter Street Lower Pacific Heights This sculpture, by well known San Francisco sculptor Beniamino Bufano, is titled Saint Francis on Horseback. Standing 8′ x 6′ and of black granite it is located in the central courtyard of the project. It was made in 1935 but not placed here until 1945. Westside Courts were built in 1943, Westside includes 136 units in six buildings that cover a full city block. Westside s unusual because it is located in a thriving, mixed-income neighborhood. Another distinction is in its construction, which relied on heavy cement blocks, creating buildings that Continue Reading

Candlestick Park Community Garden Mural

Posted by Cindy on January 30, 2013

Jan 302013

1150 Carroll Avenue Candlestick Park State Recreation Area This mural is on the side of the Candlestick Park Rangers Office. The area in front is the Candlestick Point Community Garden. The theme of the mural, expressed through symbolism, shape and color shows the various stages of the gardening experience. The mural 30′ x 100′, took four months to complete. It was designed in 1982, by five artists and graduate students from San Francisco State University. Barbara Plant, Gary Mathews, Eric Graham, James Adams and Maria Gonzalez. Rather than using the wall surface as a canvas to be covered, the artists Continue Reading

CCSF Mission Campus

Posted by Cindy on January 29, 2013

Jan 292013

1125 Valencia Mission District Said to be the biggest Tonalmachiotl in the world, this version of the Aztec Calendar sits at the entry way to the City College of San Francisco Mission Campus. Tonalmachiotl is called the Aztec Calendar, the Sunstone or Piedra del Sol. Scholars believe that pre-conquest Mesoamerican cultures conceived of time as circular…. [Mesoamericans] therefore thought they could predict the future by recording events from the past. Using their calendric system and mathematics, they could look both back in time to when they believed the world began, and infinitely forward. This colorful 27-foot Aztec Calendar hovering over the Continue Reading

Mission Pool and Playground Mural

Posted by Cindy on January 28, 2013

Jan 282013

Mission District Linda Street off of 19th * * This mural was done by Emmanuel C. Montoya, Sue Cervantes and Juana Alicia. It sits on the side of the Mission Pool and Playground which houses the New World Tree Mural. These three artists were joined by Raul Martinez and others to create the mural in the playground in 1985. It is titled Balance of Power. On the day of the inauguration of the World Tree Mural, a neighborhood organizer got Diane Feinstein, then San Francisco mayor, on tape, promising to fund murals for the neighborhood if it respected the walls and Continue Reading

Strong Roots, Healthy Tree

Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2013

Jan 252013

Olive and Polk The Tenderloin This mural was done in 1989. It is titled Strong Roots, Healthy Tree and is by Johanna Poethig who intertwined images from Laotian, Vietnamese, and Cambodian cultures. Johanna is responsible for numerous pieces of public art around San Francisco * * Since the 1970s, a growing number of Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian immigrants have settled in the Tenderloin. The first large migration of Vietnamese into the United States came in the 1970s with elites who fled their home country after the fall of Saigon in 1975. The second wave of immigrants to enter the city in Continue Reading

Old Time Fun

Posted by Cindy on January 24, 2013

Jan 242013

Frank Norris Street (aka as Austin) and Polk The Tenderloin Mike Shine is an artist who lives and paints in Bolinas, California. With no formal art school training, his background instead includes fine woodworking, furniture and cabinet making: skills that often appear in his artwork. He typically creates using driftwood and found objects, and many of his works invite (and even require) the observer to handle and operate them, something he considers contrary to the sterile “please donʼt touch” world of museums and galleries. For the last few years Mike has used painting to explore the metaphor of a childhood Continue Reading

Taking Life Lying Down

Posted by Cindy on January 23, 2013

Jan 232013

100 Block of Hemlock The Tenderloin This Native American is by Spencer Keeton Cuningham. Cunningham is responsible for another Native American mural in the tenderloin. Cunningham is a member of the Indigenous Arts Coalition, a Bay Area organization started in 2008 that advocates for Native American artists. Spencer Keeton Cunningham (Nez Perce) is originally from Portland, Oregon and along with drawing and painting, he shoots experimental and documentary films. He graduated from SFAI with a BFA in Printmaking in May 2010. Spencer currently works at White Walls Gallery in Central San Francisco. Since 2010, Spencer has shown his prints and drawings Continue Reading

Nico Berry on York Street

Posted by Cindy on January 22, 2013

Jan 222013

1354 York Street Mission/Potrero This mural is part of the San Francisco StreetSmARTS program and was done by Nico Berry. Nico Berry’s cultural perspective is shaped by his encounters with hip-hop, skateboarding, and urban youth culture while growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Over the years he has also become interested in exploring the role of culture, community, class, and religion, especially in the context of urban life. Aesthetically, Nico’s prolific experience in graphic design is extremely evident. Lettering, patterns, and the appropriation of pop and religious symbolism dominate his work. The media he works with include spray-paint, Continue Reading

Martin Luther King Memorial

Posted by Cindy on January 21, 2013

Jan 212013

Yerba Buena Center Gardens The United States’ second largest Martin Luther King Memorial, titled Revelation, was built in San Francisco in 1993. It sits behind a 50’ x 20’ foot wall of cascading water. Located in the Yerba Buena Gardens, the memorial is a lovely walkway constructed under a 120,000-gallon reflecting pool. The reflective pool spills over large pieces of Sierra granite, giving the visitor a roaring background noise that blocks out the city sounds and allows a moment for peace and contemplation. A photo of Dr. King anchors the west entrance to the fountain. This is mirrored to the east with Continue Reading

Shapes and Letters

Posted by Cindy on January 21, 2013

Jan 212013

751 and 780 Valencia at 19th The Mission This mural, consisting of shapes, numbers and letters, is by 24 year old SF resident, Jonathan Matas. In 2012 Jonathan did an interview with a group in Atlanta while participating in a show called Living Walls. Here is a few interesting excerpts from the article: I have been painting all my life. Like all kids, I made art, but I kept on going, nonstop. It has always been my passion. The only time in my life that I stopped was last year for about six months, that was an excellent break and I came back Continue Reading

The Adam Grant Building

Posted by Cindy on January 19, 2013

Jan 192013

114 Sansome Street Financial District The garland façade, as well as the coffered entryway, were removed in the 1960s. Over the course of its 145-year history, the Adam Grant Building at 114 Sansome Street has gone through several iterations. Constructed in 1867, the first building housed the dry goods business of Daniel Murphy and Adam Grant. Architect John Gaynor incorporated 250 tons of iron into this four-story brick structure located at the corner of Sansome and Bush Streets. As a result, the 1868 Joint Committee on Earthquakes honored Gaynor, citing his structure as an exemplar of earthquake-resistant building. Ironically, exemplar Continue Reading

Utility Boxes get Dressed Up

Posted by Cindy on January 18, 2013

Jan 182013

Duboce and Church Castro Mona Caron, who created the adjacent Bicycle Coalition mural on the back of the Safeway has added new touches to the Muni utility boxes on the sidewalk. On one side of the boxes, bicyclists entering the Wiggle are greeted by an illustrated flowing banner that lists the names of the streets that make up the route. On the other side, pedestrians are treated with a window to a re-imagined intersection featuring an uncovered Sans Souci Creek (which once roughly followed the path of the Wiggle). The title of this box is Manifestation Station. This photo, from Mona Caron’s website, Continue Reading

1360 Montgomery Street – A Streamline Moderne Dream

Posted by Cindy on January 17, 2013

Jan 172013

1360 Montgomery Street - A Streamline Moderne Dream

1360 Montgomery Street The Malloch Apartments Telegraph Hill The Spirit of California. Muralist Alfred Du Pont (also known as Dupont) was hired to design the images that grace the exterior 1360 Montgomery Street. Du Pont produced two 40-foot high silvery figures in sgraffito, or raised plaster, on the western facade of the building, and a third on the north side. Du Pont applied colored concrete to the exterior and carved it into shape. Sgraffito on walls has been used in Europe since classical times, and it was common in Italy in the 16th century, and can be found in African art. In combination with Continue Reading

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