Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Windows into the Tenderloin

    Windows into The Tenderloin – San Francisco Mona Caron Wandering the Tenderloin area of San Francisco you will come upon this mural on the corner of Jones and Golden Gate by Swiss born, San Francisco based, artist Mona Caron. The project was spearheaded by the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District. The design was inspired…

  • The Tenderloin National Forest

    Still in the “Tenderloin National Forest”.  The Alley is so narrow that getting the larger murals is pretty difficult, so I apologize for the quality of many of these, they just had to be taken on an angle to get them all into the frame. There is so little information available about the artists that…

  • The Tenderloin National Forest

    Steel Gate by Kevin Leeper I stopped short when I saw this beautiful gate. It is the entry to Cohen Alley off Leavenworth, near Eddy.  This is the Tenderloin, an area of town that starts many a conversation.    It has a fascinating history,  if you are interested, head over to wikipedia.  I was amazed at…

  • SOMA – Califor’ya

    SOMA – San Francisco This mural is on a building at the corner of 7th and Folsom Streets, (It is on the 7th Street side) in the South of Market area of San Francisco. It was done by 1:AM short for First Amendment, a gallery at 1000 Howard Street in San Francisco. According to 1:AM…

  • Embarcadero Center –

    More on the Embarcadero Center, San Francisco. Walk inside the Hyatt Regency adjacent to Embarcadero Center One, ride the escalator up and, behold,  Charles O. Perry’s “Eclipse”, a 40-foot high geodesic sphere consisting of 1,400 pieces of curved metal tubing joined together in pentagons and supported by three massive steel legs. Continue out onto Justin Herman…

  • The Embarcadero Center

    When urban renewal laws took hold in the 1950’s, city planner M. Justin Herman spearheaded a plan to redevelop the site where Embarcadero Center now stands into a mixed-use “city within a city.” David Rockefeller, John Portman, and Trammel-Crow submitted the winning proposal to develop the 8.5 acre site. Embarcadero Center’s four office towers were…

  • Embarcadero Center

    The Embarcadero – San Francisco Two Columns with Wedge by William Gutmann Visiting San Francisco, like many cities in the world, leaves one with the need for more time or many visits.  The first few visits people very rarely get out of Union Square.  Some people are able to get to the Ferry building and…

  • The Embarcadero – Sidney Walton Park

    Sydney Grant Walton, for whom the park is named, was a San Francisco banker who lived from 1901 to 1960. Reportedly he was a multitalented business- man, cultural leader and vice-chairman of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. As the plaque outside the park states, he was “vital in the formation of the concept and development…

  • Sydney Walton Park

    This is one of the entries to Sydney Walton Park in the Embarcadero Area of San Francisco.  It sits surrounded by Jackson, Pacific, Davis and Front Streets.  This wonderful park is full of art, and history.  It is just a marvelous oasis in the middle of lots and lots of high rises.  You will also…

  • South San Francisco

    Today’s post is, well honestly, a soap box.  Most people know the City of South San Francisco because they see the above when they drive into San Francisco from the airport.  That is it, that is probably all you need to know as well.  It is a delightful little town with an old downtown where…

  • Mission District- Balmy Avenue

    Balmy Alley, Mission District, San Francisco.  Part II. Part of the wooden cut out mural at the 24th end of Balmy Alley “The birth of a silence is written in the agony of a sigh” I continue with just a few more Balmy Alley murals today.  There are many, many more and I again encourage…

  • Mission District – Balmy Alley

    Balmy Alley Inspired by Huichol Indian Yarn Paintings by Mia Gonzales, Susan Cervantes and Others 1991 This is the beginning of Balmy Avenue.  It is runs between 25th and 24th streets in the Mission District, between Harrison and Treat.  This block long alley is one of several great alleys in San Francisco with a highly concentrated…

  • Mission District – 24th Street Mini Park, San Francisco

    24th and York This is another mosaic by  Colette Crutcher, this time, in collaboration with her husband, Mark Roller and friend Aileen Barr.   The park is at 24th and York in San Francisco.  It is a wonderful little mini park in a terrific part of the Mission District. This giant mosaic statue of the Mesoamerican…

  • Golden Gate Heights – Mosaics in San Francisco

    This amazing set of stairs is at 16th Avenue and Moraga in San Francisco.  The artists are Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr.   This 163 step stairway was a collaboration of the Golden Gate Heights Neighborhood Association and the San Francisco Parks Trust.  Colette and Aileen led a group of over 300 volunteers in making 163…

  • Oddities in San Francisco – Aeolian Harp

    This is one of the more obscure pieces of art in the San Francisco area.  It is actually in South San Francisco off Grandview Drive in the Oyster Point area.  It is difficult to find, and surrounded by ugly industrial buildings that over shadow it.  Which is sad, because it is really rather magnificent. 92-feet-tall…

  • Winner of Best Public Art 2011

    This is a special piece to me.  The artist is Owen Smith, he is an award-winning illustrator whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. Smith’s WPA-style mosaic murals and bas relief sculptures at the new Laguna Honda pay homage to Glen Wessels’ W.P.A. mural series “Professions” located in the hospital’s 1926 building. Painted in…

  • Gay Pride – June 27, 2011 – San Francisco

    Gay Pride Parade – San Francisco – 2011.  It was a beautiful day on Sunday for a parade, and the town was out in full force. The first event resembling the modern San Francisco Pride celebration was held in 1970–a small “gay-in” in Golden Gate Park. Since 1972, the event has been held each year.…

  • Pennsylvania – Bucks County

    Outside Philadelphia – This is the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, (Bucks County) Pennsylvania.  Henry Mercer inherited his money from a maiden aunt and with this money he started collecting objects of everyday life, convinced that the history of Bucks County was the history of the world. At first he did all the collecting himself, but…

  • Philadelphia

     

  • Philadelphia – Claes Oldenburg

    In Front of the City Center building downtown Philadelphia. I am a huge fan of Claes Oldenburg.  Born in Stockholm, Sweden, the son of a Swedish diplomat stationed in New York. In 1936 his father was transferred to Chicago where Oldenburg grew up, attending the Latin School of Chicago. He studied at Yale University from…

  • Philadelphia – Following your spirit

    My favorite artists are ones that find their passion and pursue it, with no thought to commercialism, or the sale.  The thing that is shunned by the neighbors, until they realize you aren’t a crazy old coot, you have a vision and it is just different. Well I found one of those in Philadelphia.  His…

  • Philadelphia – Playing Games

    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 1417 JFK Boulevard This installation is entitled “Your Move” by Daniel Martinez, Renee Petropoulis and Roger White, it was installed in 1979.  While difficult to discern on the ground, the tiles appear to be some sort of game board, not checkers, or chess, but orderly like a game board.  The tops of…

  • Philadelphia – Eastern State Penitentiary

    I am in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  My habit in any town is to seek the odd ball.  After an entire morning spent at the Philadelphia Art Museum, I headed out to an odd ball spot.  Before explaining that however, I must say, that if you have the opportunity to visit the Philadelphia Art Museum, please do.…

  • Philadelphia – Public Art As Playgrounds

    This is entitled “White Water” by Robinson Frendenthal.  It was installed in 1978, and the plaque reads  “Installed as a Fine Arts Commitment as required by the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia.”   So sad, sounds like the really didn’t want it.  Robinson Frendenthal graduated from Penn with a degree in architecture and turned to sculpture…

  • Philadelphia – Government of the People

    “Government of the People” is located in front of the Municipal Services Building in Philadelphia.  A piece by Jacques Lipchitz it was dedicated in 1976.  It seeks to portray the artist’s ideas regarding the struggle for freedom and the push to ensure democracy Lipchitz (1891-1973) was a Lithuanian.  In 1909 he moved to Paris to study…

  • Philadelphia – Maxfield Parish meets Tiffany

    Dream Garden is an enormous glass mosaic designed by artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966), and executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, for the lobby of the Curtis Publishing Building in Philadelphia — home of The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post. The work was commissioned by Edward Bok, Senior Editor of the…

  • Philadelphia – Feeling the Love

    Philadelphia – Feeling the Love

    Okay, you knew this was coming.  I am in Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love.  City of Brotherly Love isn’t actually a nickname. It is merely a translation of the Greek phrase “brotherly love” from philos “love” and adelphos “brother”. William Penn was an English Quaker, a Latin and Greek scholar who was educated at Oxford.…

  • Philadelphia – June 16, 2011

    I am in Philadelphia and I hate doing the classic tourist stuff, so sorry, you won’t see a picture of the Liberty Bell, but this is pretty touristy as things go.  This is Christ Church Burial Ground.  I love cemeteries, they are so full of history, even if you don’t know anything about the people buried there,…

  • William Wareham at SF City College

    San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus  This piece at City College San Francisco, Ocean campus, is titled “Wyoming Coup” by William Wareham.  It was installed in 1972 on the West Lawn of the Science Building. William Wareham graduated with an  MA and MFA from UC Berkeley in 1971, he did his undergraduate at the…

  • San Francisco City College Mosaics

    Two polished marble mosaics stand at either end of the Science Hall on the City College of San Francisco Campus.  These mosaics are by the Swiss-born artist Herman Volz and represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics in tiny tiles. Completed on site, the mosaics took two years to install with a staff…

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