Tag: Public Art
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Victoria Manalo Draves Park
SOMA Folsom Street Between 6th and 7th Victoria Manalo Draves Park How many times do we walk by something every day and forget that, yes, it is art. These fence panels are in a park with a fascinating history. Victoria “Vicki” Manalo Draves (December 31, 1924 – April 11, 2010) was an Olympic diver who…
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Bankers Heart
Financial District – San Francisco 555 California Street This is in the center of A.P. Giannini Plaza. A.P. Giannini was born in San Jose, California and was the Italian American founder of the Bank of America. He founded the Bank of Italy in 1904. The bank was housed in a converted saloon directly across the…
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The Tenderloin
The Tenderloin – San Francisco 149 Mason Street * *This block of Mason Street is looking so much brighter now that Glide has moved into the block. This is on the outside of GLIDE Economic Development Corporation’s 149 Mason Street Studios, an eight-story building which features 56 furnished studio apartments designed for people who have been…
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Western Addition – Pastime
Western Addition – San Francisco Corner of Franklin, Page and Market Street It is no secret that I consider graffiti to be an art form. Do not confuse that with tagging, (those single color scribbles) or bombing (just really, really large tags) which fall into a whole other category. But the question is, where does…
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Hayes Valley – Pop Up Art
Hayes Valley – San Francisco I had the privilege of catching Andy Vogt in the process of making this piece. We chatted for awhile, as he worked putting lath into the chain link fence. This space surrounds a temporary landing spot for the Museum of Craft and Art. The museum is presently in a storage…
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Pepe Ozan’s Invocation
Potrero Hill – San Francisco This sculpture is located at the corner of Bayshore Blvd, Cesar Chavez and 26th Street, just to the side of Highway 101. Though it was installed in 2004, to mark the beginning of a new bike path, they just started construction on said path this month. The sculptor, Pepe Ozan,…
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SOMA – Califor’ya
SOMA – San Francisco This mural is on a building at the corner of 7th and Folsom Streets, (It is on the 7th Street side) in the South of Market area of San Francisco. It was done by 1:AM short for First Amendment, a gallery at 1000 Howard Street in San Francisco. According to 1:AM…
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San Francisco City College Mosaics
Two polished marble mosaics stand at either end of the Science Hall on the City College of San Francisco Campus. These mosaics are by the Swiss-born artist Herman Volz and represent fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics in tiny tiles. Completed on site, the mosaics took two years to install with a staff…
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Olmec Heads in San Francisco
San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus Frida Kahlo Garden The giant Olmec head, “El Rey,” San Lorenzo #1 was carved by Ignacio Perez Solano, also know as “il Maestro.” The head is an accurate reproduction of the original piece from San Lorenzo in Veracruz, Mexico. The 3,000 year old original basalt head is…
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Peace in San Francisco
This statue of “Pacifica” is in the courtyard of the Diego Rivera Theater on the City College of San Francisco Ocean Avenue Campus. Originally, an 80 foot tall sculpture of Pacifica graced the Golden Gate International Exhibition on Treasure Island, she was destroyed by the Navy in 1941 when they took possession of the island. Sal…
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The Art of Concrete at CCSF
San Francisco City College Ocean Avenue Campus This is called “Sculptural deck and Bicentennial Wings” by Jacques Overhoff. It was done in 1979. It is typical of Overhoff work, cast concrete with ceramic tile. Jacques Overhoff was born in 1933 in the Netherlands and studied at the Graphics School of Design and the University of…
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The Presidio-Andy Goldsworthy
The Presidio Near the Arguello Gate Entry I have always been a fan of Andy Goldsworthy. I love the ethereal and temporary aspect of his work. This is titled Spire and is at the beginning of the Bay Area Ridge Trail near the Arguello Gate, west of Inspiration Point Overlook and north of the Presidio…
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Edgar Walter and Electric Power
Pacific Gas and Electric Building 245 Market Street Embarcadero/Financial District Above the arched entryway to the Pacific Gas and Electric building is this bas-relief depicting the primary activities of the company, hydroelectric power. At the top is a waterworks with water pouring through three openings symbolizing the “falling waters” that come from the mountains. This…
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Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges
Lining the 200 Block of Stevenson Street Off of 3rd near Market Locks and Keys For Harry Bridges was commissioned by Millennium Partners/ WGB Ventures Inc and the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. The piece is by artist Mildred Howard, who has been in this site before. Howard is known for her sculptural installations and…
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The Humboldt Bank Building
785 Market Street When the 1906 earthquake struck, construction of the Humboldt Bank Building was already underway. Fortunately only the foundation had been laid, leaving the architect the leeway to make necessary changes. The architect, Frederick H. Meyer, used this opportunity to incorporate every known fire and safety feature of the time into the new structure. The Humboldt…
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Brightening Mid-Market
982 Market Street The side of the Warfield Theater Mid-Market This piece, finished in May of this year (2014), was done by Clare Rojas (who has been in this website before), along with the 509 Cultural Center. The mural was sponsored, to the tune of $40,000, by the Walter and Elise Hass Fund. Thanks to…
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Os Gemeos on Market Street
1007 Market Street Mid Market This piece, sponsored by The Luggage Store Gallery and Funded by the Graue Family Fund for Public Art was done by Os Gemeos in September of 2013. Os Gemeos have been in this website before. They are twin brothers from Sao Paulo with a wonderful and very distinctive style. According…
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UN Plaza Fountain
UN Plaza Civic Center There is more to the U.N. Plaza fountain than meets the eye, however, typical of the City of San Francisco it took three redesigns, one public vote and a lot of back and forth (much of it ridiculous), to finally get the thing built. The fountain was designed by landscape architect…
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The Faces of 50 UN Plaza
50 UN Plaza City Center The Federal Building of San Francisco was vacated by the US Government in 2007 when they built a newer building in Civic Center. It has recently undergone a $121 million restoration and will be the offices of Section 9 GSA. This article is about the exterior of the building. In 1927, the…
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The Embarcadero Ribbon
The Embarcadero The Ferry Building, built in 1898, sits at the foot of Market Street. In 1953, San Francisco proposed the Embarcadero Freeway that was to connect the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges. Construction started at the Bay Bridge end; after 1.2 miles of freeway were built, neighborhood organizations began to gather and oppose the…
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Poetry of Pier 14
Pier 14 Waterfront/Embarcadero This 637-foot-long pedestrian span opened in 2006. It is the newest recreational pier on the San Francisco waterfront. The reason it exists is the breakwater on which it rests, a shield for ferries from winter storms; the design, by ROMA Design group was to top the pier with a 15-foot-wide corridor of…
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Justin Herman Plaza Embarcadero American Lincoln Brigade Memorial Painted Steel, Onyx, Concrete and Olive Trees In 1936, General Francisco Franco led a military uprising to overthrow the elected government of Spain. Forty thousand people went to Spain to fight for democracy. The 2,700 Americans who joined the fight were known as the Abraham Lincoln…
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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.…
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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…
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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…