Terra Cotta – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

The Bohemian Clubs Allegorical Figures

Posted by Cindy on August 9, 2013

Aug 092013

624 Taylor Street
Nob Hill

These four bas-relief, terra cotta panels are between the second and third floors of the Bohemian Club on the Post Street side. The first panel depicts Art and Architecture represented by a semi-nude turbanned male figure kneeling. In his proper left hand is a mallet which rests on the ground by his proper left leg. In his raised proper right hand he holds a fluted Greek column with an Ionic capital. Behind the figure is a painter’s palette and brushes.

The second panel depicts Playwriting and Acting represented by a nude male figure kneeling on his proper right knee. The figure wears a helmet with wings, and he holds a partially unrolled scroll at ground level in his proper right hand and a draped mask of tragedy in his raised proper left hand. Draped owl masks (the symbol of the Bohemian Club) hang over the figure’s proper right shoulder.

The third panel depicts Literature represented by a bearded nude male figure. He wears a scribe’s hat and kneels with a large open book resting in his lap, the edge of the book held with his proper left hand. Behind the figure is a skull, a bookshelf with books, and an owl.

The fourth panel depicts Music represented by a partially nude male figure, whose thighs are covered with cloth. His head is covered with a helmet of an owl design. His proper right arm encircles a lyre or harp with a base designed to look like a turtle shell. The figure reaches across to pluck the instrument’s strings. Behind the figure’s proper left shoulder is a disc symbolizing the moon.

These figures were done by Carlo Taliabue. Born in Cremona, Italy on March 26, 1894, Taliabue studied on a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Art in Milan. He immigrated to California in 1924 and lived in the Lincoln-Sacramento area until the late 1930s. At that time he settled in San Francisco where he produced statuary on Treasure Island for the Golden Gate International Exhibition. During the 1940s his work won awards in the annuals of the Society for Sanity in Art at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. His last years were spent in Walnut Creek, CA until his death there on July 21, 1972.

Owls and Spiders

Posted by Cindy on June 3, 2013

Jun 032013

624 Taylor
Nob Hill

The Bohemian Club

As this post is about the art not the club, (a controversial group at best) I will simply copy what Wikipedia says about the Bohemian Club:

“The Bohemian Club is a private gentlemen’s club located at 624 Taylor Street, San Francisco, California. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journalists, artists and musicians, it soon began to accept businessmen and entrepreneurs as permanent members, as well as offering temporary membership to university presidents and military commanders who were serving in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A number of past membership lists are in public domain, but modern club membership lists are private. Some prominent figures have been given honorary membership, such as Richard Nixon and William Randolph Hearst. Members have included some U.S. presidents (every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge has been a member of the Bohemian Club), many cabinet officials, and CEOs of large corporations, including major financial institutions. Major military contractors, oil companies, banks (including the Federal Reserve), utilities, and national media have high-ranking officials as club members or guests. The club’s bylaws require ten percent of the membership be accomplished artists of all types (composers, musicians, singers, actors, lighting artists, painters, authors, etc.). Artistic members are admitted after passing a stringent audition demonstrating their talent.”

Regarding the Owl:

The Bohemian Club’s symbol is an owl, which has been in use since the first year the Club started. The owl has come to symbolize the wisdom of life and companionship, that allows humans to struggle with and survive the cares and frustration of the world. The owl is found on all Bohemian materials from matchbook covers and doormats to the most elaborate Club publications.

The club motto is “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here”, a line taken from Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The club motto implies that outside concerns and business deals are to be left outside. When gathered in groups, Bohemians usually adhere to the injunction, though discussion of business often occurs between pairs of members.

The bronze sculpture, done by Haig Patigian, (who has been in this website many, many times) was dedicated n 1933, the other dates in the inscription refer to the Club’s previous buildings, which were built or dedicated in 1872 and 1909.

I have been unable to find the sculptor of this owl that sits above the entry door.

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