Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Tag: Exploratorium

  • SFGH Healing Garden

    1001 Potrero San Francisco General Hospital The artist designed this small garden, in 1993, as an extension to an existing hospital memorial garden and as a place to provide seating sheltered from the wind. A red gravel walkway, edged in white granite city-surplus curbstones, forms a double helix, which is symbolic of life. The seating…

  • Philosophers Walk on the Top of the World

    John McLaren Park Mansell Drive and John F. Shelley Drive Excelsior and Visitacion Valley This is the view towards downtown San Francisco from John McLaren Park. Named for John McLaren, the superintendent of Golden Gate Park from 1887 to 1943, it is the second largest park in the city, after Golden Gate Park. Within McLaren Park’s…

  • Firefly on the new SFPUC Building

    525 Golden Gate Avenue Civic Center This is the new Public Utilities building in San Francisco.  It is touted as one of the more “green buildings” built in the US. Four egg-beater-like wind turbines are on view behind a 200-foot-high, 22-foot-wide curtain of polycarbonate squares called Firefly. Ned Kahn’s Firefly is a lattice of tens of…

  • Fort Mason – Wind Arrows

    * * Sailboat wind indicators mounted at on 3-foot intervals on a flagpole at the east end of Fort Mason illustrate how the laminar flow of wind changes with the height.  This variation is often more complex and dramatic than expected.  Along the San Francisco shoreline, for example, the difference of only 20 feet in…

  • The Electric Sun Wall

    The Electric Sun Wall

    Pier 15 Embarcadero   The Electric Sun Wall, along the south side of Pier 15, references a modified schematic of the museum’s complex photovoltaic energy system. The design elegantly expresses what’s going on behind the ten-foot wall of half-inch-thick steel plates, where photovoltaic energy gathered from the museum’s solar panels is converted into usable electricity.…

  • Sun Swarm at the Exploratorium

    Sun Swarm at the Exploratorium

    Pier 15/17 The Embarcadero San Francisco’s Exploratorium has moved to a new and much bigger location.  This new location is allowing lots of outdoor exhibits that anyone can enjoy without paying the entry fee. This fun piece is titled Sun Swarm and is by Chris Bell. According to the Exploratorium’s website: This is an elevated…

  • Fog Bridge #72494

    Fog Bridge #72494

    Piers 17-19 Embarcadero The Fog Bridge sits to the right of the new Exploratorium very near the entrance and was designed by Fujiko Nakaya. Nakaya’s fog installation stretches across the 150-foot-long pedestrian bridge that spans the water between Piers 15 and 17. Water pumped at high pressure through more than 800 nozzles lining the bridge…