Architecture – Page 2 – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Caduceus

Posted by Cindy on November 25, 2013

Nov 252013

110 Sutter Street
Financial District

This was originally designed in a skeletal Chicago School manner by the important but little-known firm of Hemenway and Miller and remodeled with an overlay of Beaux-Arts details by architect E. A. Bozio.

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This slightly stuffy, but excellent article, written in 1979, explains the building and its environs perfectly.

In 1902, the architectural supplement to the San Francisco periodical Town Talk called the original design “A modern, superbly appointed, fire-proof building, now in the course of construction.” It was designed for the Bullock and Jones Co., who occupied the lower two floors, with offices above. At that time it was a two-part vertical composition, strongly skeletal in expression with the principal differentiation between the 2-story base and the shaft being the color of the decorative tile cladding. The shaft was terminated in a frieze punctuated by small round windows recalling Sullivan’s Guaranty and Wainright buildings, among others. Ornamentation was Renaissance/Baroque, applied in a purely decorative manner except in the traditional cornice and cresting. Unfortunately the tile cladding of the steel frame failed in the fire and the exterior was badly damaged. In 1907, it was apparently rebuilt to its original design.

At some point after 1907 the building was taken over by the French American Bank. In 1913, it was enlarged and remodeled by E. A. Bozio for the French Bank. As remodeled, although the facade was still skeletal, its composition and ornamentation became even more elaborate and its base and columns were treated as rusticated masonry. Piers were clad in gray Colusa sandstone; spandrels and cornice were copper. The design and placement of the decorative iron grilles above the spandrels are taken directly from Ernest Flagg’s first Singer Building in New York, of 1904, as is a certain quality of the overall conception, albeit in miniature. The building was extended for three bays down Trinity Street and is fully ornamented for the length of that alley facade. Although part of that facade is hidden by the California Pacific Building, much of it is visible above the low buildings on Montgomery Street. The small but sumptuous marble banking hall, with its coffered ceiling, has been partially remodeled. In composition, the present building is a three-part vertical block.

Apart from its great architectural value, the French Bank (now the French branch of the Bank of America) is extremely important as a supportive structure to the Hallidie Building and as a part of one of the finest rows of buildings in downtown San Francisco in this block of Sutter (and extending west another block to Grant). The block can be viewed as a capsule history of downtown San Francisco architecture which has come together in an aesthetically highly successful group. This building represents both the skeletal, Chicago-derived aspect of the city’s buildings and the influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and also serves as an integral element in the progressively taller buildings on the block whose cornices change in design and color at every step.

Michael R. Corbett – 1979 Splendid Survivors: San Francisco’s Downtown Architectural Heritage Hemenway & Miller designed several significant buildings in San Francisco during the first decade of the twentieth century. Comprised of architects Sylvester W. Hemenway and Washington J. Miller, the firm was responsible for several prominent pre-quake commercial buildings in downtown San Francisco including the Aronson building at the corner of 3rd and Mission, also done in the Chicago Style.

The ground floor columns display a handsome scrolled shield with a caduceus, the symbol of Mercury, the god of commerce.

Tudor Revival and Craftsman Style Firehouse

Posted by Cindy on November 20, 2013

Nov 202013

1088 Green Street
Russian Hill

The SFFD History site says:

After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, Newton J. Tharp was named city architect and was charged with rebuilding city government buildings. He designed this firehouse along with a number of Beaux Arts-style firehouses. Located on top of Russian Hill, this firehouse was designed to conform to the neighboring architecture and is the only firehouse of the Tudor Revival and Craftsman styles.

1915

During the horse-drawn era, the Department chose to build their firehouses at the top of the City’s many hills as it was quicker to respond to fires that were “downhill.” To get the four ton steam engine back to the firehouse took time. All San Francisco steam engines and trucks were drawn by a three-horse hitch, and at times the double horse team from the hose wagon was also hooked up to the steam engine, making a five horse team. Even with five horses, the return trip up the hill to the firehouse was often difficult. On the steepest return up Leavenworth to Green Street, there was a mechanical pulley system to move the steam engine up the hill. In 1918 the company received a 1917 American LaFrance Type 45, registry #2623, chain drive 6 cylinder 120 HP engine with a 900 GPM rotary gear pump and hose wagon and the horses were retired. In 1952, and the Company was deactivated and the firehouse was closed.

In 1959, philanthropist Mrs. Louise M. Davies bought the firehouse at a sealed bid City surplus property auction for $17,500. Mrs. Davies had the communications area on the main floor remolded into a sitting room that featured the 1855 Knickerbocker No. 5 hand engine and other fire memorabilia. The wooden apparatus floor was used for social receptions, banquets and dancing. The upstairs dormitory and officer’s rooms were converted into living areas. Mrs. Davies, an Honorary Chief of Department, often opened this firehouse, her city home, to neighborhood associations and charitable organizations for fund-raising events. During the 1970’s and 80’s, Mrs. Davies hosted many fund-raising parties for the SFFD Museum in this firehouse. In 1978, Mrs. Davies donated the firehouse to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In the 1998, the Trust sold the firehouse to the Scottish American St. Andrew’s Society.

Underwriters Fire Patrol

Posted by Cindy on November 18, 2013

Nov 182013

147 Natoma
SOMA/Financial District

According to the History Department of the SFFD:

On May 24, 1875, the City’s insurance companies joined together to organize and fund the Underwriters Fire Patrol. The UFP was like a fire department; it had its own firehouses, alarm system and firemen whose only task was salvage practices. The patrol worked at fires in conjunction with the SFFD. These firemen often worked below the fire floor and spread waterproof covers over merchandise threatened with water damage. They also saved and removed business records from the fire building.

The insurance companies realized that if valuable items could be saved from fire damage that their business expenses could be controlled. Due to the reduction of these expenses, their policy holders would not have to pay higher premiums. On this premise, the Underwriters Fire Patrol was organized.

On March 27, 1911, the company received a 1911 American LaFrance, registry #25, Type 5 Fire Patrol Wagon with a 4 cylinder 50 HP engine, the first motorized apparatus in San Francisco.

This three-story brick structure, designed by Clinton Day, has a terra-cotta bracketed cornice with egg and dart molding, and an arched entry ornament in bead and reel pattern molding.

Clinton Day is also responsible for the Union Trust Company Building, he has been in this site before here.

The building was sold at public auction in 1956. The construction fence is part of the new expansion of SFMOMA.

Stefan Novak and Redwood

Posted by Cindy on November 15, 2013

Nov 152013

Clipper and Diamond Heights Blvd
Noe Valley/Twin Peaks

This piece titled Redwood Sculpture, was done in 1968 by Stefan Novak.

Mr. Novak and his family are very private people, so there is little information regarding the artist. He was an instructor in the architecture department at UC Berkeley. He was born on August 22, 1918 and died on April 29, 2006 at 87 years old.

The piece is owned by the SFAC.

Engine Company #13

Posted by Cindy on November 14, 2013

Nov 142013

1458 Valencia Street
Mission

Built in 1883, this is the City’s oldest standing firehouse. In the heart of the Mission District, this rare brick firehouse in the Victorian Italianate style has a front surface made entirely of cast iron detail. Such buildings are very rare in San Francisco with most clustered in the Jackson Square area.

On the conversion from horse drawn to motorized apparatus, the company was assigned a 1916 American LaFrance Type 12 Chemical and Hose Car with a 35 gallon chemical tank with a 6 cylinder 100 HP engine.

Engine Co. No. 13 remained assigned here until 1958. The firehouse was sold at the City’s surplus property auction and is now privately owned.

Company History:
1883   Engine Co. No. 13 organized and assigned to quarters
1906   Earthquake or Fire damage to the firehouse, $2,000
1917   Converted to motorized apparatus
1918   August 15th, Battalion 6 organized and assigned to quarters
1941   November 1st, Battalion 6 relocated to the quarters of Engine Co. No. 7, 3160 – 16th Street
1941   November 1st, Division 3, commanded by an Assistant Chief, is organized and assigned to quarters
1954   October 14th, Division 3 relocated to the quarters of Engine Co. No. 10, 2300 Folsom Street
1958 February 7th, Engine Co. No. 13 relocated to new quarters at 3880 – 26th Street
1959   Sold at a City & County of San Francisco public auction

Experiences Engine Company #13. 1458 Valencia St. San Francisco

On the morning of the earthquake April 18th, 1906, our Company first removed the horses and apparatus to a place of safety in the street, from where we responded to a still alarm at 22nd & Mission Sts. Arriving there we found Lippman’s Drygoods Store on fire, and took the hydrant on the corner of Bartlett & 22nd Sts., but could get no water; therefore we canvassed the neighborhood testing all hydrants but were not successful in obtaining water until we reached Valencia & 22nd Sts. We worked under directions of Battalion Chief McKittrick and with the aid of other Companies were able to extinguish this fire at 12 M, April 18th, 1906.

Our next move was to Hayes Valley where we reported to Chief Dougherty who sent us to Laguna & Oak Sts., but finding three engines in line from that hydrant we searched the neighborhood for water but were unable to obtain any. Battalion Chief Dolan directed us to the corner of Gough and Eddy Sts. and in connection with Engine Company #24, we led a line to the corner of Gough & Grove Sts., fighting the fire at that point under command of Battalion Maxwell. We fought the fire in this vicinity for sixteen hours finally saving the corner of Gough & Golden Gate Ave.

On April 19th, at about 4 A. M. we were ordered to Fifteenth & Shotwell Sts., reporting to Battalion Chief McKittrick. We were able to save the East side of Shotwell St., north of Fifteenth St. and worked in this vicinity until three P. M. of April 19th, 1906. Finding water at Fifteenth & Valencia Sts., we led down to Mission St., fighting the fire at that point, but finding the pressure inadequate we removed to Eighteenth & Howard Sts., connecting with a broken main.

We next endeavored to obtain water at Church & Twentieth Sts., but finding other Companies in line at this point, we assisted in this vicinity until the fire was extinguished on Twentieth St. We were finally ordered to our quarters at 11 A. M. April 20th, 1906, having been in duty 53 hours.

S. & P.

(signed) Daniel Newell, Capt

(From the UC Berkeley Library Archives of there 1906 Fire and Earthquake)

Wally Heider Recording Studio

Posted by Cindy on November 8, 2013

Nov 082013

245 Hyde Street
The Tenderloin

The blue building hidden behind this tree (the fourth film vault) has a prominent place in San Francisco Music history as well.

In early 1969, Wally Heider opened the San Francisco Wally Heider’s Studio at 245 Hyde Street. Heider had reportedly apprenticed as an assistant and mixer at United Western Recorders in Hollywood, CA, with Bill Putnam, “The Father of Modern Recording”, and he already owned and ran an independent recording studio and remote recording setup called Studio 3, in Hollywood, California.

In 1967, Heider had been involved in live recording at the Monterey Pop Festival. Artists like Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Grateful Dead had been recording in Los Angeles and New York, and Heider saw the need for musicians involved in the San Francisco Sound to have their own well equipped and staffed recording studio close to home.

The studios were built by Dave Mancini while Frank DeMedio built all the studios’ custom gear and consoles, using UA console components, military grade switches and level controls, and a simple audio path that had one preamp for everything. The console was designed with 24 channels and an 8-channel monitor and cue, which was replicated in both the Studio 3 setup in Los Angeles and the remote truck. The monitor speakers were Altec604-Es with McIntosh 275 tube power amps.

This building still houses Hyde Street Studios.

There are several Tenderloin plaques. They celebrate all parts of Tenderloin history and culture, including the first hard-core adult feature film shown in the U.S. at the Screening Room, 220 Jones Street, Sally Rand’s burlesque fan dances at the Music Box now Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell Street, the former B’nai Brith, 149 Eddy Street, the former Original Joe’s, 144 Taylor Street, and the former Arcadia Dance Pavilion/Downtown Bowl at the corner of Eddy and Jones Streets at Boedekker Park.

A $12,500 grant from SF Grants for the Arts funded the sidewalk plaque project. Centrix Builders provided expertise in metal work with installation by Michael Heavey Construction.

Further reading from people that were there, about the amazing history of this building under Wally Heider and other recording/ film studios:

Beyond Chron

Found SF

Film Vaults of the Tenderloin

Posted by Cindy on November 7, 2013

Nov 072013

245-259 Hyde Street
The Tenderloin

I have driven by this area with these stunning Art Deco/Art Moderne buildings all in a row, and never pursued the history. An evening of beers at the Brown Jug with Mark Ellinger and my eyes were opened.

Originally theaters purchased the films they showed their patrons. Then Harry, Herbert and Earle C. Miles, San Francisco brothers, realized there was a business in buying films in bulk and renting them to movie houses. Their original distribution centers were on Market Street/Golden Gate Avenue.

Inside these four buildings were film vaults with thick concrete walls and big iron doors with elaborate sprinkler and ventilation systems. The reason is, the original films were highly flammable nitrate-based. Movie theaters frequently caught fire because of these flammable films, even more reason for a delivery system. In the 1950’s a less flammable form of acetate based film, actually called safety film, came into existence.

The first building of the series is the MGM Film Vault, distinguished by the MGM Lion.

These four buildings are built on two lots. The MGM and the Comedy and Tragedy buildings were on one lot (255-259) and the brown building and the blue building hidden behind the tree were on a second (245-251). These now all sit on one lot.

According to Mark’s article at Found in SF the original owners of the corner building were the Bell Brothers in 1930 and then Frank and Ida Onorato in 1947.

Until the end of the 1980s, businesses along this stretch of Hyde Street and around the corner on Golden Gate Avenue included Wally Heider Studios (now Hyde Street Studios), Monaco Labs and Leo Diner Films—a recording studio and motion picture labs/post-production facilities that, with the advent of acetate-based Kodacolor and black-and-white reversal motion picture film in the early 1950s, had taken over film exchange buildings.

The architects were O’Brien Brothers and W.D. Peugh (1930). These gentlemen worked together on several buildings in San Francisco including the Art Deco Title Insurance Company Building on Montgomery Street, where you can read about their long history with San Francisco.

These buildings housed 20th Century Fox, Loews, and United Artists film exchanges as well.

Grain Silos in San Francisco?

Posted by Cindy on November 6, 2013

Nov 062013

696 Amador Street
off 3rd Street / Pier 90/92
Bayview/Hunters Point

These abandoned silos on Pier 90/92 formerly stored grain that was brought in by rail and then loaded from the silos onto ships for export. These operations were discontinued following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Pier 90/92 was created in 1918 by the State Harbor Commission. In the 1920’s the grain terminal also had a mill to serve local needs. The terminal could hold 500,000 bushels, the principal grain that flowed through them was barley. In the 1970’s the terminal was used to export grains to Russia during their severe drought.

They are slated to become an art installation soon.

The Pier 92 Grain silo project is being funded through the Port’s Southern Waterfront Beautification funds, a policy established by the Port Commission.

The Port of San Francisco retained the Arts Commission to assist in the commissioning of a public artwork to be located at Pier 92, along San Francisco’s southern waterfront. Four artists/ artist teams were selected as finalists to propose a public artwork for this site that serves as an entrance to the Bayview community: Ball-Nogues Studio; Electroland; Haddad/Drugan; and Rigo 23.

The committee chose Haddad/Drugan and their “Bayview Rise” Project. It will be a long-term temporary installation, expected to be in a place for a minimum of 5 years. The artwork will be reversible in that it may be painted over or removed.

I am not young enough, nor have the physical dexterity to climb over barbed wire fences, however, Joseph Schell does – check out his photographs of the interior of the grain silo structure.

This portion of San Francisco is covered with historic and abandoned buildings. While the city and the Port of San Francisco is dedicated to keeping the buildings intact and pushing the concept of reuse rather than destruction, only time will tell.

Oslos has already put their grain silos to re-use by putting in dormitories, check it out here.

Alemany Emergency Hospital

Posted by Cindy on October 25, 2013

Oct 252013

35 Onandaga Avenue at Alemany
Mission Terrace / Outer Mission

This beautiful building was once the Alemany Emergency Hospital.

There were no other emergency rooms other than San Francisco General Hospital before 1966, therefore the County was responsible for all emergency care and all emergency ambulance transport. Emergency care was provided throughout San Francisco free of charge by the citywide system, which consisted of the primary emergency room—Mission Emergency—and four other “Emergency Hospitals” scattered throughout the City. These hospitals were Central, located adjacent to City Hall; Harbor, located on the downtown waterfront; Park, located on the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park; and this on, Alemany, that served the the southwestern part of the city.

They were all staffed by surgeons—graduates of the County surgery residency program. At these hospitals, minor emergencies were treated and first aid administered. If a patient needed hospitalization and had private funds, a private physician was contacted and the patient was transferred by private ambulance to a private hospital. If the emergency was critical or the patient was indigent, the patient was transported by City ambulance to Mission Emergency, which was attached to but administratively separate from the City and County Hospital.

This information came from The History of the Surgical Service at San Francisco General Hospital, a wonderful read if you are interested in the history of the health care system in San Francisco.

This is from a 1962 San Francisco City Annual Report

Care is rendered at five Emergency Hospitals on a 24-hour basis with a minimum of one doctor, one registered nurse, one medical steward, and one ambulance driver on duty 24-hours daily throughout the year. Care is also provided at Ocean Beach Hospital from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday by a doctor and a steward (no ambulance) ; additionally, by a doctor only on holidays and each week day during summer school vacation. Alemany and Park Emergency Hospitals have the minimum staff; Central has an additional nurse from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., two additional part-time doctors on Friday and Saturday evenings and an extra “trouble-shooter” ambulance from 4:00 PM to midnight. Mission has 24-hour ambulance service, but has all the medical and nursing staff needed and provided by San Francisco General Hospital.

The San Francisco situation was not unique. The emergence of the modern emergency department (ED) is a surprisingly recent development. Prior to the 1960s, emergency rooms were often poorly equipped, understaffed, unsupervised, and largely ignored. In many hospitals, the emergency room was a single room staffed by nurses and physicians with little or no training in the treatment of injuries. It was also common to use foreign medical school graduates in this capacity. In teaching hospitals, the emergency areas were staffed by junior house officers, and faculty supervision was limited. One young medical student in the 1950s described emergency rooms as “dismal places, staffed by doctors who could not keep a job—alcoholics and drifters” (University of Michigan, 2003, p. 50).

Photo Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library – January 6, 1933

November 20, 1933.

To the Members of the Grand Jury of the City and County of San
Francisco.
Gentlemen: Your Committee on Health, Hospitals and Homes
submits the following report:

Department of Public Health

During the past year the Department of Public Health has carried on its administrative functions from the new Health Center Building, located at 101 Grove street. This building was constructed with the funds made possible through the bond issue of 1928, at a cost of approximately $725,000…

From the same bond issue, funds were also made available to build the newest Emergency Hospital and Health Center. These structures are located at the corner of Alemany boulevard and Onondaga avenue, affording emergency hospital care and health center activities for the southern portion of the City.

Eventually the building was taken over by St. Mary’s and turned into an Adult Day Health Care Center. Sadly the building now sits empty:

Fire Station #8 a WPA gem on Bluxome Street

Posted by Cindy on October 21, 2013

Oct 212013

36 Bluxome Street
SOMA
South of the Slot

Fire Station Number 8 was built in 1939 as a result of the WPA

The San Francisco Fire Department was a big beneficiary of W.P.A. The Department’s 1974 Historical Review noted, “One of the few advances made by the Department in these lean years resulted from the formation of the Works Project Administration. As a result of this program several of the Department buildings were remodeled, new heating and plumbing facilities installed, and much necessary maintenance accomplished.”

Assistant City Engineer Clyde E. Healy’s December, 1939, report notes repairs to no less than forty-one Fire Department locations throughout the city, including the construction of a new fire house at 38 Bluxome Street.

The October 20, 1938, Project Proposal informs, “The present fire house at this location was built in 1907, as a temporary structure. W.P.A. will start razing this building on October 10th and this proposal is for a new modern fire house on the same site.”

For those unfamiliar with Bluxome Street it is a small alley south of Market between Fourth and Fifth streets. Should a fire-related emergency ever occur at Pac Bell Park, firefighters from the Bluxome station would be the first on the scene.

The day I was there the firetruck was parked outside and I was able to get a few fun photos. Sadly, I can tell you nothing about the logo.

When public transit was still dominated by cable cars, The Slot was the iron track that went through the center of Market Street where the cables operated.

According to a short story from Jack London at the time, “North of the Slot were the theaters, hotels, and shopping district, the banks and the staid, respectable business houses. South of the Slot were the factories, slums, laundries, machine-shops, boiler works, and the abodes of the working class.”

“South of The Slot” became a euphemism for the, shall we say, seedier parts of the area. It also became a class divider, as in “that guy’s from the south of the slot.” The 1906 Earthquake and Fire destroyed the area, burning through the wooden hotels, boarding houses, and flats. Over time, as the area was redeveloped, the nickname slowly disappeared, and now we all call it SOMA.

Bluxome Street was named for Isaac G. Bluxome. He was a successful business man of his time, and sat on the California State Board of Mineralogists. He died at the age of 60 (or 61) in 1890.

Historic Odd Fellows Columbarium

Posted by Cindy on September 19, 2013

Sep 192013

1 Loraine Court
Inner Richmond

I recently attended a service at this columbarium for Alice Carey. Alice was a friend and one of America’s most respected historic architects.

On the cover of her memorial brochure was this photograph:

I knew it was time for me to explore the history of the columbarium and bring it to you.

The Columbarium is the only non-denominational burial place within San Francisco’s city limits that is open to the public and has space available. The crematorium was designed by British Architect Bernard J.S. Cahill in 1897. As you can see by the above photograph this Neo-Classical building was originally part of the 167-acre Odd Fellows Cemetery. The columbarium and cemetery survived a 1901 law that banned further burials with in the city limits, but the cemetery didn’t survive the development of the next several decades. In the 1930’s the city mandated that all cemetery gravesites be moved to Colma (nicknamed the City of the Dead), just south of San Francisco down the peninsula. The entire cemetery was moved leaving behind only the columbarium.

From 1934 to 1979 the building lay untended, some say it was even home to bootleggers during prohibition. In 1979 it was purchased by the Neptune Society and underwent a $300,000 restoration.

The Columbarium is considered one of his Cahill’s finest works. The Odd Fellows regarded death as a dignified and ordinary affair, without fear or morbid feelings. The interior of the Columbarium was furnished like a Victorian parlor with potted palms and oriental rugs. The neo-classical style building blends Roman Baroque, English neoclassicism, and 19th century polychrome.

The exterior has a Roman-inspired dome similar to Michaelangelo’s original conception for St. Peters. The dome is copper-clad and ribbed with an inner steel framework. A squat lantern is clad in copper with round openings and decorated with garlands. The walls are stucco and grooved to simulate stone.

The interior has four levels topped by a stained glass ceiling within the lantern. The dome is supported by eight Roman Doric piers. Flower and urn decorations are cast plaster. The central rotunda has four square wings.

The diameter, from the entrance to the stained glass window opposite, is 64 feet. The width of the rotunda within the Inner circle is 29 feet and the rotunda reaches a height of about 45 feet.

Original Odd Fellows literature described the rotunda of the Columbarium: “a delicate and refined atmosphere prevails here, divesting the mind of unpleasant feeling that so often goes hand in hand with anything associated with the burial of the dead.”

Built into the building’s four stories of passageways, the decorated niches for San Francisco citizens of the past tell the city’s history dating back to the 1890s, including the 1906 earthquake (which the building handily survived), Harvey Milk’s assassination and the staggering number of deaths during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

The first floor has the Greek names of the winds: Aquilo, Solanus, Eurus, Auster, Notus, Zephyrus, Olympias and Arktas. The second floor has the Greek names of the constellations: Corona, Zubanan, Cheiron, Argo, Sothis, Orion, Perseus and Kepheus.

The window in the Aquilo room depicting three angels in flight, was restored by The Hyland Studio, according to their website:

The Designer was a fellow named Harry Ryle Hopps, the glazier was E. B. Wiley. Mr. Hopps was born in 1869. We know that he was an owner of “United Glass Art Co.” located at 115 Turk St in San Francisco.

The Three Angels window was built in 1909. Three years after the 1906 earthquake, 7 years after the 1902 cemetery re-location began and one year before cremation was banned in the city which led to the eventual abandonment of the building.

The ground floor contains approximately 2,400 niches, the first floor 2,500, and the second and third floors approximately 1,800 each, with an overall total of more than 8,500.

Bernard Joseph Stanislaus Cahill (1866–1944), was a cartographer as well as an architect. He was born in London, England in 1866 and is known for his cemetery architecture and for the design of the San Francisco Civic Center. He was also the architect for a number of other commercial buildings, including the Multnomah Hotel in Portland, Oregon and various buildings in Vancouver, B. C.

He was also the inventor of the Butterfly World Map, like Buckminster Fuller’s later Dymaxion map of 1943 and 1954, the butterfly map enabled all continents to be uninterrupted, and with reasonable fidelity to a globe. Cahill demonstrated this principle by also inventing a rubber-ball globe which could be flattened under a pane of glass in the “Butterfly” form, then return to its ball shape.

There is a marvelous group of stories about some of the inhabitants of the Columbarium at Bella Morte, be sure to click on the name Emmitt Watson to read about him. His story is so entwined with the Columbarium that not knowing about Emmitt is not finishing your history lesson.

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.

Fishermen’s and Seamen’s Chapel

Posted by Cindy on September 3, 2013

Sep 032013

Fisherman’s Wharf
Pier 45 Inner Harbor

Built in 1979, this charming little chapel is a memorial to the memory of Bay Area fishermen who’ve lost their lives at sea. It’s also something of a touchstone for San Francisco’s mostly Italian, mostly Roman Catholic fishing community, which traces its origins to Sicilian immigrants from the early 1800s. The day I visited there was a notice that they offer the only full traditional Pre-Vatican II Traditional Latin Mass in the Bay Area. Not the New Order Service of 1969, Not the half order Vatican II Service of 1962, but the full traditional Roman Catholic Latin Mass (1950).

Officially known as St. John the Apostle Oratory, the chapel received the blessing of the Archbishop of Palermo during a visit here in 1989. The tiny chapel, with its stained glass windows and separate campanile, offers a splendid escape Monday’s thru Friday’s.

On the first Saturday of October, it is home base for the Blessing of the Fleet, an age-old fisherman’s tradition.

One of the chapel’s most beautiful features is a stained glass window that was presented by the Women’s Propeller Club.

Although it was not open the day I visited, it is easy to look inside through the many windows.Plaques bearing the names of hundreds of men and women who have died at sea grace the chapel’s walls. Flags and banners from diverse religions hang from its vaulted ceiling.

According to the Oratory’s website:

The architect of the chapel is unknown.

The Oratory’s campanile, or bell-tower, rising seven meters from the deck and weighing nearly two metric tons, was installed in September 2006 and cost approximately $100,000. It is capped by a 300-kilogram ship’s bell installed in the tower, donated by the Port Authority of San Francisco from an historic ship.

The architect of the campanile was local architect Anthony Pataleoni. Mr. Pantaleoni was graduated from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo in 1976 and was an instructor in the architectural department at the City College of San Francisco from 1982 to 1984. He is Principal Architect of Kotas/Pantaleoni Architects, of San Francisco.

Flower Boxes at the Bohemian Club

Posted by Cindy on August 7, 2013

Aug 072013

624 Taylor Street
Nob Hill

These planter boxes were commissioned by the architect, Lewis Hobart, for the Bohemian Club in 1933. They were sculpted by Haig Patigian.

Haig Patigian has been in this site may times, you can read all about him and his works here.

Lewis Parsons Hobart was born in St. Louis, Missouri on January 14, 1873. After graduating from preparatory schools in the East, he attended U.C. Berkeley for a year. While there he was influenced by Bernard Maybeck (as were many other young students, such as Julia Morgan and Arthur Brown, Jr.), participating in drawing classes that Maybeck taught in his home. Hobart left Berkeley to study architecture for two years at the American Academy in Rome and followed that by three years of further architectural training at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1901 to 1903.

Back in the United States, Hobart first worked in New York for two years, and then returned to the Bay Area in 1906, to participate in the rebuilding of the City after the earthquake and fire. He obtained his State Architectural license in October 1906 (number B429). He opened his own office in the A. Page Brown-designed Crocker Building (600 Market at Post). His classical training and knowledge of steel-frame construction stood him in good stead and he obtained commissions for several downtown office buildings from the Crocker Estate and other property owners. Surviving buildings of his from 1908 include the Postal Telegraph Building at 22 Battery, the Jewelers Building at 150 Post, the Commercial Building at 825-33 Market, and the White Investment Co. Building at 280 Battery.

Hobart is best known in San Francisco for his work implementing the design of Grace Episcopal Cathedral on Nob Hill. In 1903 Hobart had married socialite Mabel Reed Deming, a cousin of William H. Crocker who donated the site for the Cathedral. Inspired by 13th-century French Gothic architecture, the plans were drawn and the cornerstone laid in 1910.

In 1932 Hobart became the first President of the San Francisco Arts Commission, and later was appointed to the Board of Architects for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition held on Treasure Island, for which he also designed the Court of Flowers and the Court of Reflections. He died on October 19, 1954 and his funeral was held at Grace Cathedral. (excerpted from the San Francisco Encyclopedia)

California Masonic Memorial Temple

Posted by Cindy on August 3, 2013

Aug 032013

1111 California Street
Nob Hill

Designed by Albert Roller (April 20, 1891 – July 12, 1981) the California Masonic Memorial Temple was dedicated on Sept. 29, 1958. An icon of mid-century modernist architecture, the structure is located at the top of Nob Hill across the street from Grace Cathedral. It is a testament to simple lines, open spaces, and heavy materials. Inside is an auditorium that seats 3,165, and 16,500 square feet of exhibit space.

As its name suggests, the Temple also serves as a war memorial. The building’s façade features a sculpture, by Emile Norman, of four 12-foot-high figures, representing the branches of the armed forces. They are accompanied by a frieze of 14 marble figures engaged in a tug of war, representing the struggle between good and evil. The sculpture is inscribed: “Dedicated to Our Masonic Brethren Who Died in the Cause of Freedom.”

From Norman’s 2009 obituary in the Los Angeles Times:

Born in 1918 in San Gabriel to walnut ranchers and truck farmers, Norman carved his first piece of art from a riverside rock when he was 11.

He ruined his father’s chisels, but the results gained his father’s respect.

Norman enrolled in art school but dropped out after one day when a teacher told him he was doing the assignment “the wrong way,” according to his website.

Art resulted from inspiration, not books, he later said.

He found his in the natural surroundings of his youth; in Big Sur, where he had lived since 1946; and with his life partner, Brooks Clement, who arrived to fix Norman’s radio in 1943 and stayed to manage his career.

Married actors Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry produced a documentary, “Emile Norman: By His Own Design,” about their former Big Sur neighbor partly because they wanted to share the inspirational effect Norman had on them and the lives of many others.

The idea behind the title of the film is that “he designed his life as well as his art,” Eikenberry told The Times on Friday. “He created this extraordinary life in Big Sur with Brooks when it was not safe to be gay. . . . They had this incredible freedom to create the life they wanted at a time when people were hiding in closets.”

Clement told Norman, “You go into the studio and I’ll show the world what you’re doing,” according to the documentary, which debuted on PBS last year.

Norman’s biggest commission was the four-story window that he completed in the late 1950s, with Clement’s assistance, for the entrance to the Masonic Memorial Temple on San Francisco’s Nob Hill. The window depicts the Masons’ heritage and role in the development of California.

To create it, Norman used a technique he developed and named “endo-mosaic.” The process involved suspending crushed glass and other materials — such as metal, fabric, shells and dirt — between clear sheets of translucent plastic.

He also carved the sculptural reliefs in the marble on the outside of the Masonic building and earned about $100,000 for the entire project, Mallory said.

“They were successful very early. That just drove him incessantly to come up with new stuff,” Mallory said. “The confidence was there.”

Early in his career, Norman produced window displays for Bullocks Wilshire and made props for films, including plastic headdresses for the chorus girls in the 1946 Fred Astaire film “Blue Skies.”

When Norman’s club foot kept him out of the military during World War II, he moved to New York in 1943. He began experimenting with his endo-mosaic technique while designing window displays for Bergdorf Goodman in New York.

The plastic and wood-inlay sculptures he placed in windows brought him critical notice, and by 1951 he had his first major show as a non-commercial artist, at the Feingarten Gallery in New York.

The modernism then in vogue in New York’s art world “turned him off,” Mallory said, and Norman returned to Big Sur for good in 1961 to create nature-inspired carvings and reliefs.

His use of natural wood colors and homemade epoxy were particularly recognized, and his fork-shaped renditions of birds in flight became a signature, according to a 2008 article in the Monterey County Herald.

On a ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Norman and Clement hand-built their home and filled it with Norman’s art. Friends called them “Clemile.”

Clement opened and ran Norman’s gallery in Carmel and documented his partner’s art and techniques before dying of cancer in 1973.

While shopping for a vacation home in the 1980s, Tucker and Eikenberry met Norman, who had land for sale. When they waffled over buying it, Norman gestured and said, “Life is short,” Tucker recalled.

The couple bought the land and, during the dozen or so years they lived there, delighted in bringing friends to meet Norman.

“Their lives would be changed, as ours were,” Tucker said. “The way he looked at his art and work was a calling. It flowed through him. He was the purest artist I ever met.”

The end of Norman’s life was “very much like he predicted,” Tucker said. “He was famous for saying, ‘The minute I can’t work, call 911,’ and he worked until the last week of his life.”

The last piece Norman finished was of an owl.

*The window that is mentioned in the obituary is inside the Masonic Temple.

U.S. Custom House Sculpture

Posted by Cindy on August 1, 2013

Aug 012013

555 Battery Street
Financial District
U.S. Customs House

Most of the granite sculptures on the U.S. Custom house were done in-situ by unknown artists.

The roof top sculpture, however, was done by Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper (April 8, 1875 – 1937) was an American sculptor.

Born in Glenwood, Iowa, and based in Denver, Colorado, Cooper studied under Preston Powers (son of the well known sculptor Hiram Powers,) then at the Art Institute of Chicago with Lorado Taft and the Art Students League of New York through about 1901.

Cooper is best known for her bronze figure of Sacajawea originally produced as the centerpiece for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, 1905, unveiled in a ceremony attended by Susan B. Anthony and other prominent feminists. This figure now stands in Washington Park.

Regarding the sculpture. The figure on the right holds a staff with two snakes coiled around her left arm. The figure on the left holds a two handled vase in her right arm.

U.S. Custom House

Posted by Cindy on July 31, 2013

Jul 312013

555 Battery Street
Financial District

The first United States Congress established the U.S. Customs Service in 1789 to collect duties and taxes on imported goods, control carriers of imports and exports, and combat smuggling and revenue fraud. Until the federal income tax was created in 1913, customs funded virtually the entire government.

Possessing an extraordinary natural harbor and one of the country’s finest ports, San Francisco rapidly expanded during the nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth century, construction of the Panama Canal, which would dramatically shorten trade routes between the Atlantic and Pacific, had begun. City officials likely anticipated increased commerce and determined that a larger custom house was needed.

In 1905, Eames & Young, a St. Louis architectural firm, won a national design competition for a new custom house. The firm was chosen under the auspices of the Tarsney Act, which allowed the Treasury Department to hire private architects rather than use only government designers. William S. Eames and Thomas Crane Young were the principals of the prominent firm. They designed the building in the Beaux Arts Classicism style, which was popular as part of the City Beautiful movement that sought to create more appealing urban centers.

An earlier, more modest custom house, located on Battery Street between Jackson and Washington Streets, was demolished to make way for the present building. Ground was broken for the new custom house on January 28, 1906. The 1906 Fire and Earthquake occurred on April 18th, as a result, construction of the custom house was not completed until 1911.

The U.S. Custom House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. After the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, seismic and other upgrades were made from 1993 to 1997. While the building continues to serve many of its original purposes, the U.S. Customs Service is now the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Eames and Young consisted of Thomas Crane Young, FAIA (1858-1934) and William Sylvester Eames, FAIA (1857-1915). Young was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and went to St. Louis to attend Washington University, then spent two years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1880, and briefly worked for the Boston firm of Van Brunt & Howe. Eames had gone to St. Louis as a child, attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, and served as Deputy Commissioner of Public Buildings for the city.

They formed a partnership in 1885. Their first works were elaborate mansions for Vandeventer Place and other private places in St. Louis, which led to an important series of landmark downtown warehouses, later collectively known as Cupples Station. Eames was elected President of the American Institute of Architects in 1904-1905. Through the 1900s and 1910s the firm designed several St. Louis skyscrapers and built a reputation for offices, schools, and institutional buildings constructed nationwide.

Eames died in 1915. Young’s last building was the 1926 immense St. Louis Masonic Temple, he stopped practicing in 1927.

Eames was the uncle of American designer Charles Eames.

The smaller granite sculptures was sculpted in-situ by unknown artists.

You can read an excellent complete article with amazing photographs on the U.S. Customs house here.

Original Customs House, Photograph courtesy of San Francisco Public Library

The Hayward/Kohl Building

Posted by Cindy on July 30, 2013

Jul 302013

400 Montgomery Street
Financial District

The Hayward/Kohl Building was designed by Percy & Polk (George Percy and Willis Polk both of whom have been written about on this site many times before) for Alvinza Hayward.

Hayward made his fortune from the Eureka Gold Mine in California and the Comstock Silver Mine in Nevada as well as investments in timber, coal, railroads, real estate, and banking. He was a director of the Bank of California and one of the original investors in the San Francisco City Gas Company which become the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Hayward was in his late seventies when he commissioned the partners Percy and Polk to create a first-class office building that would be a testament to his wealth and position in the community. The building was completed in 1901. The footprint of the building is shaped like the letter H, perhaps a giant monogram for Hayward.

Purchased in 1904 by C. Frederick Kohl the building was one of the first steel-frame “fireproof” buildings in San Francisco. It survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire with damage to only the first floors which were reconstructed under Polk’s supervision. (see the end of this posting)

The lower stories have been redesigned several times, but the upper stories with their brick curtain walls clad in Colusa limestone remain unchanged.

As noted in Splendid Survivors: San Francisco’s Downtown Architectural heritage (Michael R. Corbett, 1979):

It was an early and excellent example…of the more formal designs that later came to characterize the city, relying on a relatively restrained and “correct” use of Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation and the two or three part compositional formula….Ornamentation in this three part composition is concentrated in the upper tier with its mannerist giant order and carved garlands and animal heads.”

C. Frederick Kohl was a man of leisure who lived on an estate down the peninsula inherited from his father, who made his fortune in the Alaska fisheries. In 1909 a French maid employed by Kohl’s wife got into a dispute with a chauffeur. After Kohl had her arrested she sued him for false arrest. When found not guilty two years later he was shot, by the maid, in the chest while leaving the courthouse . He survived and Adele Verge was required to spend time in a mental institution in her native France. She spent years bombarding Kohl with threatening notes. In 1921 at the Del Monte Lodge in Carmel he committed suicide.

Separated from his wife, Kohl left most of his $4 million estate to his mistress Marion L. Lord, ex-wife of the heir to the Lord and Taylor retail chain Alfred P. Lord.

News clippings after the 1906 Fire and Earthquake regarding the Hayward Building:

Very little fire entered the basement, and the power plant is practically uninjured. The marble finish of the entrance hall is in good condition, the ornamental plaster being but slightly damaged. The second and third stores are fire swept, but a few offices in the northeast corner of the building escaped. In the fourth and fifth stories, the fire did the most damage in the offices around the southwest corner of the building. In the sixth and seventh stories the fire entered the building through windows in the northeast corner, consuming all the combustible contents in a few offices and discoloring the rest of the story by smoke. The upper stories are but slightly damaged by fire and smoke, but are disfigured by a great number of plaster cracks caused by the earthquake (Himmelwright 1906: 168-172).

The building’s unique survival of the disaster was generally ascribed to its construction. One engineer noted that “The advantages of the metal-covered trim and the incombustible floor finish were clearly demonstrated in this building.”(Himmelwright 1906: 172) Another observed that the “metal-covered doors in this building…prevented to some extent the spread of the fire within the building itself, so that where one room burned out, the fire coming through a front window, an adjacent room was not burned because of the resistance offered by the door.”(Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906, and their Effects on Structures and Structural materials, Bulletin no. 324, Series R., Structural Materials 1, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907, repr: San Francisco Historical Publishing Co., n.p.)

Another reason for the building’s survival was its relative isolation. A local architect, visiting the scene, noted that the “Merchants Exchange building really acted as a screen across the street to the Hayward building, and the one-story Merchants Trust building also served to protect the building, by the fifty-foot open space on the east; California Street on the south and Montgomery Street on the west also protected the building.”(The Architect and Engineer of California, Vol. V No 1 (May, 1906), n.p.)

In 1854 this corner was the site of Sam Brannan’s Express Building, a four-story edifice with a stone facade and New Orleans-style iron balconies around the windows on the upper floors. (source: Rand Richards – Historic Walks in San Francisco) (Photo Courtesy of SF Public Library)

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”.

Jo Mora and the Don Lee Cadillac Building

Posted by Cindy on June 21, 2013

Jun 212013

1000 Van Ness
Tenderloin

This sculpture sits over the entryway to the Don Lee Cadillac Showroom. The sculpture is the creation of Jo Mora, who has been in this website before.

This doorway pediment consists of a central shield bearing the Cadillac insignia framed by an ornately carved, stylized border with a lion’s face at the bottom. Symmetrically seated on either side of the shield is a partially draped seated male figure. The male figure on the left rests his outstretched proper right arm on an 8-spoke Cadillac wheel, beyond which is an anvil. He holds a sledgehammer in his proper left hand, a sprocket and cable are on the base beneath his knee. The male on the right rests his outstretched proper left arm on a 12-spoke wheel, beyond which is a battery.***

The cadillac emblem is one of few in the automotive industry whose origins legitimately belong to a family name. Le Sieur Antoine De La Mothe Cadillac was born in Gascony on March 5, 1658. He founded Detroit in 1701, as well as the governorship of Mississippi. King Louis XIV awarded him the rank of Chevalier of the Military Order of St. Louis.

The Crown symbolizes the six ancient counts of France. Each tip is topped with a pearl, a symbol of descendancy from the royal counts of Tolouse.

The birds are merlettes, which are heraldic adaptations of the martin. They are set in trios to represent the Holy Trinity. Merlettes were usually awarded by the school of heralds to knights making significant contributions in the Crusades. The color black against gold, represents wisdom and riches. The “fess”, or lateral black bar, represents the award for Crusader service.

The red band symbolizes prowess and boldness in action. The silver (which looks white in the photo) represents purity, charity, virtue and plenty. The blue represents knightly valor.

The emblem was adopted for use on Cadillac cars in 1905. It was registered as a trademark on August 7, 1906. The Cadillac emblem underwent a complete redesign in 1998.

***The battery is in the official explanation of the piece. However, I found a wonderful, but sadly very small, photo at the website Roadside America that shows that what that really is is an engine block.

The Don Lee Building

Posted by Cindy on June 20, 2013

Jun 202013

1000 Van Ness Avenue
Tenderloin

This magnificent building was built in 1921. Designed by Weeks and Day it is the largest and one of San Francisco’s most architecturally significant auto showrooms.

As the private automobile became a standard commodity of middle-class American life, hundreds of manufacturers rose to meet the demand. Within this increasingly competitive field, manufacturers quickly learned the value of the showroom in marketing their products to consumers. They understood that the architecture of the showroom was at least as important as its primary functional role: as a place to display, store and repair automobiles. In an era in which smaller automobile manufacturers were being weeded out, larger manufacturers aimed to reinforce customer confidence by designing automobile dealerships that, like banks, conveyed a sense of stability and permanency.

In San Francisco Don Lee was the first to commission such an elaborate showroom for his prominent corner lot on Van Ness Avenue. The completion of the Don Lee Building in 1921 led to increasing rivalries between local dealers, as each tried to outdo each other by commissioning prominent architectural firms to design increasingly elaborate showrooms.

Although the Don Lee Building is a utilitarian concrete loft structure, the architecture of the building embodied popular historicist imagery derived from a multitude of sources including Renaissance Italy and idealized Spanish Colonial architecture.

The main elevation on Van Ness Avenue is divided into three horizontal bands, conforming to the classic Renaissance composition of a base, shaft and capital.

The base is clad entirely in rusticated terra cotta blocks with chamfered joints designed to replicate dressed stone. The recessed entry contains brass double doors that once provided access to the auto showroom. Flanking the entrance are pairs of terra cotta Tuscan Order columns supporting a broken entablature.

The shaft, faced with light-colored stucco and bracketed by terra cotta quoins, is demarcated from the base by a terra cotta entablature and from the cornice by a prominent terra cotta frieze. The shaft is articulated by a grid of fifteen double-height window openings fitted with wood, double-hung sash, decorative metal spandrel panels and twisted metal colonnettes.

The façade terminates in a prominent fiberglass cornice which projects seven feet from the building’s face and duplicates the original sheet metal cornice removed in 1955.

The above is from the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco. This building is National Register #01001179.

Weeks & Day (1916-1953)
Charles Peter Weeks (1870–1928)
William Peyton Day (1886–1966)Charles Peter Weeks was born in Copley, Ohio on September 1, 1870, the son of Peter Weeks and Catharine Francisco. He was educated at the University of Akron and obtained some preliminary experience working in the Akron office of architect Charles Snyder.
From 1892-95 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, having been accepted into the atelier of Victor Laloux. Returning from Paris, he worked in Cleveland for a while and then moved to New York, initially working as an interior decorator, until in 1899 he joined John Galen Howard at the firm of Howard & Cauldwell.

In 1901 Howard moved to Berkeley, to become supervising architect for the University of California, and he invited Weeks to join him as head designer. That association did not continue for long. In 1903 Weeks joined established San Francisco architect Albert Sutton (1867-1923) as junior partner in the firm of Sutton & Weeks.

Weeks wrote a plaintive article for the June 1906 Architect and Engineer magazine titled ‘Who is to blame for San Francisco’s plight?’, referring to the devastating earthquake and fire damage. The article hit owners first for a lack of concern for quality, the City for performing inadequate inspections, architects for acquiescing on cheapness, and contractors for not giving value for money. In April 1907 he wrote another article on the renaissance of apartment houses in the City, which featured several Sutton & Weeks designs. Sutton moved to Hood River, Oregon in 1910, leaving Weeks to practice on his own.

In 1916 Weeks took on engineer William Peyton Day as a partner and together they designed this magnificent Don Lee Building, the Huntington Hotel, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the Brocklebank apartments at 1000 Mason and the Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Powell at Sutter. Weeks & Day were responsible for designing the main mausoleum at Mountain View Cemetery, where Weeks is buried.

After the Brocklebank was completed in 1926, Weeks and his wife moved into the building. Sadly, on March 25, 1928, Weeks was found dead in the living room of the apartment by his wife’s maid.

William Peyton Day continued the operations of the company for another 25 years.

The sculpture above the doorway is by Jo Mora you can read all about it here.

55 Stockton Street – Looking up

Posted by Cindy on May 8, 2013

May 082013

55 Stockton Street
Union Square / Market Street

This building, designed by Heller Manus Architects in 1989 stands at a very busy corner one block off of Union Square.

If you look closely you can see 14 figures drumming or holding spheres.

According to the Smithsonian Institute, these figures were done by Tom Otterness. Mr. Otterness has a difficult history with the City of San Francisco. In 1977, at the age of 25 Otterness bought a shelter dog, tied it to a fence and shot it on camera. He displayed the footage in an art exhibit in a constant loop and called it “Shot Dog Film.” In 2011, when this was discovered, Otterness’ contract for $750,000 worth of work for the new subway terminal, was cancelled. You can read about the controversy here.

Tom Otterness was born in 1952 in Witchita, Kansas. He is an American sculptor whose works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums.

His style is often described as cartoonish and cheerful, but also political. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on capitalist realism. He studied at the Arts Students League in New York in 1973, the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York. and was a member of the Collaborative Arts Project in 1977.

The pieces at 55 Stockton Street are of concrete.

The Insurance Exchange

Posted by Cindy on May 4, 2013

May 042013

Insurance Exchange Building
433 California Street
Financial District

Turning 100 years old this year, the Insurance Exchange was designed by Willis Polk. This highly ornamented building is complimented by its sister building the Merchant’s Exchange next door. The highly decorated exterior of the building, flanked with majestic Corinthian columns and topped with a very detailed cornice simply commands attention.

The ornamentation is derived from Renaissance/Baroque sources. The building exemplifies the City Beautiful Movement in its simultaneous success as urban architecture, achieved through form and composition, and as an individual building, achieved in the quality of its details.

Insurance Exchange Cornice

From the San Francisco Call September 7, 1912

“Final Plans Accepted and Financial Arrangements Made for $500,000 Building

After some variations in the original plan the design for the Insurance Exchange building has been finally accepted. Work will be started in a few weeks on this great structure at the southeast corner of California and Lledesdorff streets. The building has been financed through stock in the corporation, the Insurance Exchange, and a bond mortgage for $500,000 which was executed last week to the Savings Union Bank and Trust Credit Company as trustee. The plans of Willis Polk & Co., the architects, have been finally approved acd adopted by the directors of the Insurance Exchange, and contracts will be awarded Immediately for excavating the lot and laying the foundations. Immediately thereafter contracts will be awarded for various parts of the superstructure, beginning with the steel frame which is to be of the cage type. With a frontage of 107 feet on California Street the new Insurance building will be one of the largest office structures in San Francisco. It will cover the entire lot. Besides a basement there will be 11 stories, with the ground floor arranged for banking houses or Insurance offices. The offices in the upper floors will be largely occupied by Insurance brokers and agents and others engaged in some way with insurnace business, although others may locate in the building. The steel frame work will be covered with re-inforced concrete fireproofing and the floors, walls and roof will also be In concrete, the fronts having a facing of pressed brick with terra cotta ornament in the same color tone. In the first story marble and stone will be used. On the California street front will be a colonnade running up three stories to a cornice, the columns and pilasters to be of the Corinthian order. The shaft of the building will be plain, after the style of the Merchants’ Exchange building, and the top will be ornamented-with a classic cornice. Tbe interior throughout Its 11 floors will be finished in first class style similar to the best office buildings of the city.”

Willis Polk (1867-1924) was born in Jacksonville, Illinois. In 1989 he joined the office of A. Page Brown and moved with Brown’s firm to San Francisco. He took over the Ferry Building project following Brown’s death. Polk published the Architectural News from 1890-1891 and wrote a series of short critiques for The Wave, a San Francisco weekly review. In 1901, he moved to Chicago to work with Daniel Burnham. Polk returned to San Francisco in 1903 and worked on the master plan for the City of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire. After opening his own office he was named supervising architect of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Besides the Insurance Exchange he was responsible for such famous buildings as the Hallidie Building (the first glass curtain-walled building ever constructed) the Bourn estate at Filoli and Grass Valley and the water temple in Sunol, California.

Polk’s architectural firm, Polk and Company completed more than one hundred major commercial and residential buildings in the Bay Area.

Lobby Elevators of 433 California Street

The coffered ceiling in the lobby of the Insurance Exchange

The Masonic Temple – 25 Van Ness

Posted by Cindy on April 26, 2013

Apr 262013

Masonic Temple
25 Van Ness
Civic Center

Walter Danforth Bliss and William Baker Faville were the architects of this, the second Masonic Lodge in San Francisco.

The first lodge, at 1 Montgomery Street, was built in 1860 and burned down in the 1906 fire. In 1911 the Masonic Temple Association, headed by William Crocker, laid a 12—ton cornerstone (the largest ever in California at that time) for their new building. Two years later a grand parade of 8,000 Masons, with Knights Templar on horseback, marked its dedication.

Cornerstone

An outstanding example of the Beaux-Arts period, the temple is primarily Italian Gothic in design, with a Romanesque—style arched entrance and touches inspired by cathedrals in France.

The entrance is through this elegant and noble portal, under a semi-circular hood supported on corbels formed by the stone figures of lions. The tympanum shows three allegorical figures in relief by New York Sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman (The future creator of the Winged Head Liberty Dime and the Walking Liberty Half Dollar), consisting of three figures of Charity, Fortitude and Truth. Beneath, the lintel is a row of nine smaller figures by San Francisco artist Ralph Stackpole, representing David, Abraham, St. John the Divine, Nathan the prophet, Moses, Aaron, St. John the Baptist, Joseph and Jonathan.

The 1913 Chamber of Commerce Handbook for San Francisco declared, “One of the few buildings in America comparable to some of the good buildings in Europe is the Masonic Temple.” And the 1919 Architectural Review said, “Bliss & Faville’s Masonic Temple is widely known as one of the best Masonic structures, both inside and out. . . . It looks like what it is, and this cannot always be said of lodges and fraternity buildings.”

The sculpture of King Solomon is also by Adolph Alexander Weinman. The canopy itself is adorned with sculptured angels, and with enshrined allegorical figures all done by Ralph Stackpole . The man with the capital represents the Builder: the one with the book, Social Order; the one with the lyre, Reverence for Beauty of the World; the one with his hands on his breast, Reverence for the Mystery of the Heavens.

Walter Danforth Bliss was born in Nevada in 1872, the fourth of five children born to Duane and Elizabeth Bliss. Duane Bliss had migrated out to California from Massachusetts during the gold rush period and had become a partner in a Nevada Bank, which was purchased by the Bank of California. Later Duane formed a partnership with Bank of California President, Darius Ogden Mills, in the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company. This successful venture secured the education of the Bliss’ children, each of whom was sent back to Massachusetts for schooling at MIT.

At MIT, Walter Bliss met his future partner William Baker Faville. Faville, more than 5 years his senior, was born in San Andreas, California, but had grown up in western New York State, and had already served an apprenticeship in Buffalo with architects Green & Wicks. Bliss and Faville both left MIT in 1895 and began working at the prominent New York firm of McKim, Mead & White. Although neither appears to have attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, they would have been exposed to its philosophy in New York at McKim, Mead & White and also at the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects in New York, of which John Galen Howard was then President.

In 1898 the pair decided to form a partnership and selected San Francisco as the city in which to work.

The freemasons moved from this building in 1958, it is now home to a number of city and county departments, including the San Francisco Arts Commission, the New Conservatory Theatre, and the San Francisco Parking Division.

It allegedly sits along the outlines of a pyramid shape planned for the streets of San Francisco by various influential Freemasons. The shape reflects a prominent Freemason symbol and also the pyramid in the Great Seal of the United States. Supposedly, the first diagonal runs from Market to Mission Streets, the second runs along Montgomery Avenue, and the base is formed by Van Ness. The Transamerica Pyramid sits at the capstone.

The Sentinel a Flat Iron Building that Makes its Mark

Posted by Cindy on March 30, 2013

Mar 302013

916 Geary
North Beach

The Sentinel Building, also known as Columbus Tower, sits at the corners of Columbus Avenue, Kearny Street and Jackson Street.

The building is a classic Beaux-Arts flatiron. Flatiron buildings were structures built primarily between 1880 and 1926. Most flatirons were built in either the Beaux-Arts or Renaissance Revival architectural style that was popular at the time. These types of buildings are called flatirons because they are shaped like a flat clothes iron. This design is necessary for the trapezoid or triangular-shaped lots that are commonly found in 19th-and-20th century city grids. These odd-shaped lots appeared when the grids incorporated diagonal streets such as Columbus and Market Streets in San Francisco.

Flatirons were some of the first skyscrapers to use steel frames over reinforced concrete. They employed an efficient use of what was often considered an unbuildable lot. At the same time, they added architectural interest to the neighborhood.

San Francisco is the home to several flatiron buildings. The most recognizable is the Sentinel, designed by Salfield and Kohlberg and clad in white tile and copper. Construction on the Sentinel was begun before the 1906 earthquake and fire. The framing survived the disaster, and the building was completed in 1907.

The building has eight floors above ground, and houses an expansive basement. The top floor initially housed the real estate offices of its owner, the notorious Abe Ruef. Ruef was a local political figure who spent time in San Quentin for bribery. Ceasar’s Grill, a hotspot during prohibition, occupied the basement; years later that spot was the home of the Hungry i.

The Sentinel under construction after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. Photo Credit: San Francisco Public Library

In 1958, Rob Moor, a Dutch-born businessman purchased the building as an investment, on the advice of his architect and friend Henrick Bull. San Francisco had not yet awoken to historic preservation, and the building was scheduled for demolition. With the guidance of Bull, Moor began to restore the building. He also renamed it Columbus Tower.

A short two years later, at a one and one-half times profit, Moor sold the building to the Kingston Trio. The Kingston Trio used the building for their corporate headquarters, and had a sound studio in the basement throughout the 1960s.

On June 13, 1970, the building was declared San Francisco Landmark #33 and renamed the Sentinel Building.

The Kingston Trio sold the building to Francis Ford Coppola in 1973 for $500,000. It has remained in the hands of Mr. Coppola as the headquarters for his corporation Zoetrope. Offices occupy the upper floors; there is a small screening room in the basement and a private apartment on the top floor. The ground floor houses Zoetrope Restaurant, featuring wines from the Coppola’s Napa Valley winery.

A flatiron building at 540 Market Street

The only flatiron residential building in San Francisco, 1081 Haight Street

The Tanforan Cottages

Posted by Cindy on March 21, 2013

Mar 212013

214-220 Dolores
Mission District

Not far from Mission Dolores are a pair of homes considered to be the oldest in the Mission District and among some of the oldest in San Francisco: 214 and 220 Dolores Street.

The Mission District, originally Mission San Francisco de Asis, was the sixteenth in a chain of twenty missions stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. Mission San Francisco de Asis is affectionately called Mission Dolores after the lagoon the mission was first built on in 1776. At that time California was a part of Spain.

In 1821 Mexico achieved independence from Spain and annexed California. One of the first acts of the newly independent Mexican congress was to give the California governor the right to distribute land grants to private citizens. All a gentleman had to do to receive this generous gift was show that 1) he was a loyal and reliable Catholic citizen, and 2) he would map out his claim, build fences and build a house on his property. These grants were very large and sometimes ambiguous. (Today modern historians have a difficult time determining actual borders of these land grants.)

Mission de Asis 1856 (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)

It is thought that 214 and 220 Dolores were part of the Francisco Guerrero land grant, parceled in the early 1830s to both native “Californios” and foreign-born Mexican citizens. The parcels at 214 and 220 came into the hands of Torbio Tanforan and his wife Maria de los Angeles Valencia in 1896.

Torbio, a Chilean by birth, and his wife Maria, a native Californian, lived with their large family on a farm down the peninsula in what is now San Bruno. Their name is also associated with the Tanforan Race Track, now a shopping mall bearing their name. Torbio was the grandson-in-law of Jose Antonio Sanchez, the grantee of the Buri Buri Land Grant, where the race track was located.

It is thought that the Tanforans built 214 and 220 Dolores as farm houses. 214 was built first, and 220 followed a year or so later. The homes are simple frame structures with classic revival facades (an architectural movement based on the use of pure Roman and Greek forms in the early 19th century). Their false fronts, full width porches with square posts, and four-over-four window sashes (four panes of glass on the top frame and four panes of glass on the bottom frame of a double hung window) are common features of the 1890s. The deep-set backyard, another feature of that era, holds a carriage house that contained a Tanforan-owned carriage until 1940.

The houses were originally inhabited by the Tanforans’ daughter Mary and were handed down from sister to sister until 1952. It is not known if Torbio and Maria ever lived in them. They both died in San Francisco in 1884 and were buried in Mission Dolores; the home address listed on their obituary was Well Street.

In 1995, 220 Dolores was purchased by Dolores Street Community Services. It opened as a residential care facility for homeless men and women living with disabling HIV and AIDS. Originally the home was called Hope House, but was renamed when a neighbor (Richard M. Cohen)-who died of AIDS-bequeathed a significant portion of the funds for the renovation. Renovation was not an easy task, as 220 Dolores was already designated San Francisco Landmark #68. The architects took great care in maintaining the façade, and yet were able to add a lower floor, allowing the home to handle up to 10 residents at a time.

In 2002, 214 was repurposed as a home for drug and alcohol addicts in need. 214 Dolores is San Francisco Landmark #67.

If you are in the neighborhood, take a stroll past these two lovely homes, enjoy the gardens, and marvel at a time in San Francisco real-estate history when front porches, picket fences and expansive gardens were the norm.

Mission Dolores in the 1800s (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)

Sutro Heights Park

Posted by Cindy on March 19, 2013

Mar 192013

Point Lobos Avenue
Land’s End

Copy of the original lion that stood at the Sutro Heights entry gate.

(Photo credit: UC Bancroft Library)

Adolph Sutro (1830-1898) was one of San Francisco’s most beloved mayors and esteemed citizens. Originally from Prussia, he amassed millions in the Comstock Lode (Nevada Silver Rush of 1859) by designing and constructing ventilated mining shafts. By cashing out just before the silver ran out, he was able to purchase fully one-twelfth of San Francisco, including all the western dunes and a section of the sea shore called the Outside Lands. Sutro’s name is commonly associated with the baths he built in the Outside Lands. He did, however, leave another legacy. The site of his home, now Sutro Heights Park.

Sutro first encountered the future site of his Sutro Heights home in March of 1881 while visiting ”¨the home of Samuel Tetlow, the owner of the Bella Union Music Hall. Tetlow had purchased the dwelling in 1860 from James Butler, the first developer of the Cliff House. It is said that Sutro fell instantly in love with the house and made a deposit of $1,000 (on a total sale price of $15,000) for the cottage and an adjoining 1.65 acres that very afternoon.

Carpet Bed designs including flowers, carefully trimmed grasses, hedges and moss were a standard feature in Victorian gardens. (Photo credit: GGNRA)

After purchasing the home, Sutro focused first on the grounds. He spent millions trying to recreate a European garden, dotted with statues, planters, and fountains. During an 1883 tour of Europe, Sutro arranged for the casting of more than 200 pieces of sculpture in Belgium. These were shipped to San Francisco in 1884. The sculptures (made of plaster, rather than marble, required an annual coat of white paint to keep the plaster from dissolving). In 1885, Sutro opened his gardens to the public for an entry fee of one dime. He hoped that the statuary would provide accessible examples of European culture to these visitors. The money he collected helped to pay the 15 gardeners employed to maintain the grounds. While many people brought picnic baskets for their visit, they were confiscated by the gate keeper and returned when the visitors departed. Litter, which often included peanut shells-hot peanuts were a popular snack of the era-were apparently too much for Sutro to bear.

Photo credit: UC Bancroft Library

In 1895, following a modest remodeling of the house, Sutro built a rock-and-sandstone parapet. Sited on the highest point of the estate, the parapet provides breathtaking views of the surrounding sea shore. Since its completion, the parapet has been a major focal point of visitors to the property.

As built, the parapet was a curved sandstone wall that extended in a semicircle for 280 feet. Thirty stone crenellations (notches), linked with iron railings and topped with statues or urns, defined the top edge of the parapet. Initially, the parapet also held freestanding chairs and two large Parrott-model cannons (each with a stack of cannon balls).

This small wood-frame structure originally featured carved wooden posts, iron grillwork doors, decorative shingles, and finials capping each roof end.

The well house, built around 1885, is the last surviving building from the Sutro era. Although it is not clear whether the structure ever actually housed a well, it did contain the plumbing for the pair of drinking fountains mounted on opposite sides of the structure.

Sutro died in 1898, prompting a call for the City to purchase the property. In 1902, Charles Bundschu wrote in The Merchant’s Association Review: “He immortalized his name in our local history, not alone by planting of miles of forests near the ocean line, by the building of the monumental bathing establishment bearing his name, by the inauguration of a competitive electric [streetcar] line introducing the five-cent fare, but he showed his admiration of nature’s greatest gifts in the creation of Sutro Heights, a beautiful park elevation, overlooking the Cliff House point, affording an unbounded view of the vast expanse of the great Pacific Ocean.”

In 1920, Emma Sutro Merritt, Sutro’s daughter, transferred the ownership of Sutro Heights to the City of San Francisco under the condition that it be “forever held and maintained as a free public resort or park under the name of Sutro Heights.” The Merritts retained a lifetime residence on the property. Between 1920 and 1933 the Merritts continued to allow visitors access to Sutro Heights, which by this time was starting to show its age and lack of maintenance.

The Conservatory was built to house Sutro’s exotic plants collected from all over the world. (Photo credit: GGNRA)

In 1933, at the request of Emma Sutro Merritt, the City of San Francisco agreed to assume maintenance of Sutro Heights. There were, however, no major improvements made or any rehabilitation of the grounds.

In 1937, the city submitted a proposal to the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for the rehabilitation of the grounds at Sutro Heights. Some repairs were undertaken, and staircases were constructed at both ends of the wall to provide access to the parapet terrace. In total, WPA “improvements” to Sutro Heights cost $90,994. When Emma Sutro Merritt died in residence at Sutro Heights in 1938, the City directed the WPA to demolish the aged home that had fallen into severe disrepair.

In 1976, the City of San Francisco transferred ownership of Sutro Heights to the National Park Service, to be managed as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The National Park Service is charged with identifying and preserving the historic features remaining on the site. Under Park Service direction, the grounds have improved significantly.

Today, Sutro Heights provides a large, green open space for visitors. The parapet still wraps around the hill allowing anyone to sit and gaze out onto the magnificent view. And now, at least, you can have your picnic on the grounds.

The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange

Posted by Cindy on March 12, 2013

Mar 122013

301 Pine Street
Financial District

301 Pine Street-one of the historic buildings that comprised our financial system on the West Coast-began its life in 1915 as a sub-treasury building for the United States Treasury. In 1930, when the San Francisco Financial District was fast becoming the Wall Street of the West, the “gentlemen of the tape and ticker” sought a building to express the important financial work they were doing. They chose the San Francisco firm of Miller and Pflueger to remodel the old government building into a new Exchange.

Front of the building features a colonnade and granite staircase, the only remnants of the building’s original design.

At this point in his life architect Timothy Pflueger was interested in throwing out Classicism, a style of architecture modeled after ancient Greek and Roman structures; however, his commission required that he keep the colonnade and the granite stairs leading to the building, part of the original design by J. Milton Dyer of Cleveland, Ohio. As a result, the original building was completely gutted, and the only thing that remained was the front of the building we see today. The colonnade consists of ten Tuscan columns, and as part of the Tuscan Order, the entablature, the area above the columns, should have remained plain and simple. Instead, Pflueger chose to break the classical rules and placed two Art Deco medallions inside the entablature. Art Deco began in the 1920s and lasted for a good twenty years. Known for its linear symmetry, it was a nice fit with the simple Tuscan style that Pflueger was forced to keep.

Art Deco medallions inside the entablature of the Pacific Stock Exchange Building:

The massive Art Deco pieces that grace the Exchange were sculpted out of Yosemite granite by Ralph Stackpole. They are meant to show the polarity of agriculture and industry and are named accordingly. The sculptures were an important part of Pflueger’s move toward modern architecture, as he did not want any of the “classic” repetitive art on the exterior of the building.

Agriculture

Industry

The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange has a long history in the financial world of the United States. In 1882 nineteen gentlemen anted up $50 each to form the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange. In 1957 they merged with the Los Angeles Oil Exchange to become the Pacific Stock Exchange, although each town kept its own trading floor. In 1976 they began trading options, and options are still traded in a building around the corner. The trading floor closed in 2002, and the building was later sold to private developers. In a wonderful example of historic reuse, the tenant today is Equinox Fitness.

The Neo-Gothic Russ Building towers over the classical Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.

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. The El Capitan was built for a group of businessmen, Ackerman, Harris and Oppen, who managed several San Francisco theaters.

Lansburgh, a graduate of UC Berkeley and a draftsman for Bernard Maybeck, gave the El Capitan a Spanish Colonial Revival interior with a Churrigueresque or Mexican Baroque façade.

Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture was born as a result of the Panama-California Exposition (held in San Diego in 1915), and became a style movement in the United States from 1915 to 1931. It is a hybrid style based on the architecture from the early Spanish colonization of North and South Americas. It started in California and Florida, which had the ideal climate for Mediterranean-inspired homes and remains popular to this day.

The style is usually marked by the use of smooth plaster and stucco walls with cast concrete ornamentation. Other characteristics often include small porches or balconies, tall double-hung windows, canvas awnings, decorative iron, ornamental tile work and arcades.

Churriqueresque, or Mexican Baroque was named after Spanish sculptor and architect Jose Benito de Churriquera. The style emerged in the 17th century and is marked by extremely expressive and florid decoration. It is normally found on the main entrance façade of a building.

Not only was the El Capitan the most opulent of the many Mission Street theaters, it was also the second largest movie theater in town. It was the first to bring second-run films in wide-screen cinema scope to the Mission, and did so until the fall of 1953. (Second run films are often shown in less popular venues after opening in larger well-known theaters; these theaters keep a larger share of the ticket fees and often charge a lower ticket price.)

Sadly decreasing revenue-due to the advent of television-coupled with the large operating costs of such a grand theater, the El Capitan closed on July 24, 1956. The next year it tried for a second life, reopening on May 1, 1957, with reduced prices, but to no avail. The theater was permanently closed before the year was out.

The final indignity to the El Capitan was its gutting in 1964. The grand Churriqueresque entry way now serves as a portal to a large parking lot.

The Wigwam was opened at 2555 Mission Street in 1913 by Joe Bauer. Al Jolson always played here when he was in town. The theater became the New Rialto (1930-1947) then the Crown (1947-1974), and finally ended its life as the Cine Latino when it closed in 1990.

At 2465 Mission Street stands the Majestic Theater. This two-story, 870-seat theater opened in April 1912. A 1937 name change to “The Tower” accompanied a remodel in a Streamline Moderne style by architect S. Charles Lee. Lee was another of the celebrated and prolific theater architects of his generation, and a huge proponent of Streamline Moderne and Art Deco in theater design. The theater closed in 1996.

The Grand (2665 Mission Street) opened in 1940. Designed by Alexander A. Cantin (an Oakland native and one of the first licensed architects in California) and A. MacKenzie Cantin, the Grand showed third-run films to a potential audience of 850 people. The theater closed in 1988.

The New Mission is the last on our tour. The New Mission was designed by the Reid brothers, the greater Bay Area’s most prolific designers of vaudeville and movie theaters. Built in 1915, it had 2000 seats. In 1932, Timothy Pflueger designed a renovated New Mission in an Art Deco Style. The fate of this movie house has remained in limbo since it closed in 1993. Since then, the “Save-New-Mission” preservation group has worked actively to see that the palace does not disappear. Its fate is still unknown as of the publication of this article.

Jackson Brewery an Old San Francisco Tradition

Posted by Cindy on February 14, 2013

Feb 142013

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 to 1920. The first brewery was on First Street between Howard and Folsom; they purchased the property at Folsom and 11th in 1905. Early construction was destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent fire. Consequently, the new brewery wasn’t completed until 1912.

The brewery is composed of a series of low-rise brick buildings sitting on a concrete foundation and simply ornamented with concrete and wood. This Romanesque Revival style brewery is one of the last remaining turn-of-the-century brewing complexes of its type.

Romanesque architecture was a style that emerged in Western Europe in the early 11th century. It has Roman and Byzantine elements and is characterized by massive articulated wall structures, round arches, and powerful vaults. This style lasted until the advent of Gothic architecture in the middle of the 12th century. Romanesque Revival was the reuse in the second half of the 19th century of the massive Romanesque forms.

Romanesque architecture in the United States was much simpler than that found in Europe. The Romanesque features of the Jackson Brewery include semicircular arches for the door and window openings and a belt course (a horizontal band across a building).

Due to its brick construction, the Jackson Brewery building did not fare well in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. A thorough retrofitting was done to upgrade the building to San Francisco’s 1990 building codes. The building is now a mixed-use complex with seven live-work condominiums and a restaurant.

San Francisco is now home to only ten breweries. These include the famous Anchor Steam Brewery and lesser-known local favorites such as The Beach Chalet, Speakeasy and the ThirstyBear.

The Jackson Brewery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 and is San Francisco Landmark #199.

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