Mission Bay – Koret Quad

 Posted by on November 6, 2011
Nov 062011
 
Mission Bay
Mission Bay
Koret Quad
The Koret Quad is a large green space in the heart of Mission Bay.  I have discussed my abhorrence with this part of town before.  The quad is only accessible by pedestrians and is so well hidden as to be missed by most people. This is somewhat intentional I assume as Koret Quad it not legally open to the public other than the sidewalks.  While you won’t be hounded, they have made it well known so that they can throw you out if you misbehave.  One of my favorite outdoor art installations is set throughout the quad.

Roy McMakin’s untitled collection of furniture was installed  in July 2004. His materials include concrete, fiberglass, wood, bronze, enamel, steel, and stone. The piece uses an ultra-functional double-sided concrete bench design devised by the artist, which seems to have been arranged in a regular pattern around the perimeter of Mission Bay’s primary outdoor space. But the bench module has then been transformed, and rearranged in all kinds of different ways, and also reproduced in four shades of red and orange polyester.

It is as if the occupants of nearby buildings had come out and arranged the outdoor furniture and then made it their own. The installation extends across two acres and combines 125 different items, including a number of laboratory “minus 80” freezers and cardboard “banker’s boxes” reproduced in enamel. There are contemporary disposable plastic patio chairs, 19th century wood schoolroom chairs, and Eames side chairs – all cast in bronze. There are also natural boulders, bronze tree stumps in place of some of the planted trees (and reproducing their bark) , and bronze replicas of weathered planks.

Minus 80 Refrigerator
File Boxes

Mission Bay – HEAL

 Posted by on November 5, 2011
Nov 052011
 
Mission Bay
UCSF Campus
Heal by Miroslaw Balka
Miroslaw Balka was born in Ottwock, Poland, near Warsaw, and continues to live and work there.  He turned his family home into a studio. Austere, with a sense of absence and empty space, his work is defined by the people that interact with it.
 HEAL is a stainless steel structure standing at an angle, on a large concrete square public space. Looking up the word is in reverse and hard to figure out, but looking down, the shadow of the word is projected on the pavement below, moving and changing throughout the day with the path of the sun.
I was especially charmed by the fact that it incorporates a water fountain.

Mission Bay – Ballast

 Posted by on October 29, 2011
Oct 292011
 
Mission Bay
Ballast by Richard Serra
Corten Steel
One of my absolute favorite mediums for massive outdoor sculpture is Corten Steel.  Weathering steel, best-known under the trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as “Corten steel”, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rust-like appearance if exposed to the weather for several years.  “Weathering” means that due to their chemical compositions, these steels exhibit increased resistance to atmospheric corrosion compared to other steels. This is because the steel forms a protective layer on its surface under the influence of the weather.
The corrosion-retarding effect of the protective layer is produced by the particular distribution and concentration of alloying elements in it. The layer protecting the surface develops and regenerates continuously when subjected to the influence of the weather. In other words, the steel is allowed to rust in order to form the ‘protective’ coating.
These massive slabs will change with the time, not so that one would notice, but gradually and beautifully like a fine wine.
San Francisco native Richard Serra lives and works in New York City and Nova Scotia. One of the foremost artists of his time, Serra has redefined the idea of sculpture since the 1960s, making the experience of place, time, and movement essential to his work. For Serra, the art is not as much about the objects themselves as it is about the individual experience of the viewer in relation to the whole context, measured and defined by his massive interventions.
Installed in the UCSF campus east plaza in March 2005, Ballast consists of two plates of corten steel that appear to cut into the surrounding plaza, each measures 49’2″ by 14’9″ and weighs 70 tons. The steel plates are located at equal distances from the ends of the space and from each other, dividing the plaza lengthwise into three equal intervals. Each tilts 18″ sideways, in opposite directions. The scale, weight, placement, and in my opinion, especially the angle, of the steel plates define the whole plaza.

Mission Bay -I’m Alive

 Posted by on October 27, 2011
Oct 272011
 
Mission Bay
409-499 Illinois
I’m Alive by Tony Cragg – 2004 Stainless Steel

Tony Cragg was born in liverpool in 1949. He attended Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham College, and the Royal College of Art, London (1973-77). Cragg has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1977.

I’m Alive exudes movement and vitality and is the perfect expression of its title. It is simple, serpentine and, despite its highly wrought form and reflective surface, it is very natural.  I also love it’s placement, the lawn, just emphasizes all that is right with this piece.

 

Mission Bay – Doppel Fountain

 Posted by on October 26, 2011
Oct 262011
 
Mission Bay
Doppel Fountain by Shawn Smith

In his own words: In 2006, I was commissioned to create a monumental sculpture by SKS Investments/ X-4 Dolphin LLC in San Francisco’s Mission Bay district. I designed a pixilated stainless steel fountain that appears to be frozen in mid-air. The pixilated fountain is made of varying lengths of 2″ square tubing that are lined up vertically and overlapped to create pixels. The tubing remains open at the top and bottom so that from above or below the sculpture, viewers are able to see through the tubing, giving the fountain a feeling of transparency like water. The sculpture has a mirror finish to reflect the colors of its environment. As people enter the building, they pass underneath the sculpture, giving them the sense that water is pouring over them.

I think he captured the feeling just perfectly, when you stand and look up it is truly an amazing feeling of sky and art melding together.

Shawn Smith was born in 1972 in Dallas, TX where he attended Arts Magnet High School and Brookhaven College before graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, MO with a BFA in Printmaking in 1995.  Smith received his MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2005.

 

Mission Bay – Hulls

 Posted by on October 25, 2011
Oct 252011
 
Mission Bay
500 A. Terry Francois Blvd at Pierpoint Lane
*
Hulls by Richard Deutsch

Hulls commemorates Mission Bay’s waterfront, which is steeped in maritime history.  During the 16th century Ohlone Indians, sustained by hunting and fishing, built boats from reeds of the bay’s shallow waters.  The 1800’s saw a vibrant industry of wooden schooners and ferryboat builders, which later lead to the fabrication of large metal World War 1 and II submarines and battleships.

Born in Los Angles, Richards work is extensive with pieces all over the world, as can be seen on his website

 

Mission Bay – Where did good architecture go?

 Posted by on April 6, 2011
Apr 062011
 

Mission Bay

What happened to architecture? This is not architecture, this is value engineering. These buildings were cliches before they were finished. No one is going to fly hundreds of miles to the great city of San Francisco and snap pictures of these monstrosities, unless of course they are urban planners. I would like to leave the more technical aspects of why this is off the mark to an architect blogger, you can read his succinct points on architecture and then you can contemplate why these building miss in so many ways.

The above photo was taken in the newest area of San Francisco called Mission Bay. This area sat virtually empty until 1998. It is over 300 acres and was owned by a development company in Canada. When they went broke the quagmire began. There were developers that came in and demanded, politicians that were bought and sold, and social entities that muddled up the issues. Out of that we have the most ugly 300 acres ever created. It is a city within a city of no use save for developers to make large quantities of money, and politicians to fill their election coffers. The buildings far exceed the height limit originally told the general public, they are so close together that it is not a nice place to be unless you are on your lunch out of your office. There is housing, with promised “urban living” amenities, that I doubt will ever live up to the hype. There will never be anything but large corporate stores and restaurants, because the leases all stipulate that you must use union labor for all your build outs, and small individual, and unique companies can’t afford those labor rates. This began before the great recession, so the desire for tax dollars from payroll to income, while a factor, was not the overriding reason to sell out. What happened San Francisco?

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