Tag: Architecture of San Francisco
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Native Sons of the Golden West
414 Mason Street Union Square The Native Sons of the Golden West Building on Mason street is an eight story, steel frame structure, with a highly ornamented façade of granite, terra cotta and brick. Around the two main entrances to the building are placed medallions of men associated with the discovery and settlement of California.…
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An Ode to the Automobile
Mason and O’Farrell Streets Union Square The construction of the Downtown Center Garage, now the Mason O’Farrell Garage, harkens back to when the automobile was king. San Francisco now has a Transit First Policy which specifically gives priority to public transit and other alternatives to the private automobile as the means of meeting San Francisco’s transportation…
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The Rialto Building
116 New Montgomery South of Market I became intrigued with this building when a friend showed me this Black and White photo in the lobby of the Rialto. (Note: the round building on the left is the Crossley building) The Rialto is an eight-story H-shaped plan with center light courts. It has a steel frame…
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The Adam Grant Building
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…
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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…
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450 Sutter, A Mayan Palace
450 Sutter Street is San Francisco’s monument to the Mayan Revival branch of Art Deco. Art Deco draws on a variety of sources including Art Nouveau, Cubism and the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Art Deco celebrates the technological wonders of the early 20th century, the frivolities of the roaring twenties, and the hard times of…
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The Sentinel Building in North Beach
North Beach Sentinel Building The Columbus Tower, also known as the Sentinel Building, or to most as Zoetrope sits at the corners of Columbus Avenue, Kearny Street and Jackson Street. It is a flatiron building with a distinctive copper-green exterior. Designed by Salfield and Kohlberg the building is clad in white tile and copper.…
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The Faces of 50 UN Plaza
50 UN Plaza City Center The Federal Building of San Francisco was vacated by the US Government in 2007 when they built a newer building in Civic Center. It has recently undergone a $121 million restoration and will be the offices of Section 9 GSA. This article is about the exterior of the building. In 1927, the…