Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Tag: Tile

  • Tompkins Stairs

    Tompkins Stairs

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    Tompkins Avenue Between Putnam and Nevada Bernal Heights Andre Rothblatt, was the architect responsible for the design of the Tompkins Stairway Garden.  The zigzag tile design was inspired by the Steps to Peace painted by youth in the Syrian town of Deir Atiyah. According to a 2019 article in the San Francisco Chronicle: The park…

  • Words Fly Away

    Words Fly Away

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    Ocean View Branch Library 345 Randolph Street This is a fabulous piece for a library.  John Wehrle imagined the library interior as a metaphor for a book.  He covered the library in jumbled letters, words and pictures. According to the artist’s website: Created in 2004, Worlds Fly Away is a complete installation – floor to…

  • Building the Iron Horse

    Building the Iron Horse

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    Laguna Honda Hospital Lobby of the Pavillion 375 Laguna Honda Boulevard Forest Hill Owen Smith’s WPA-style mosaic murals depicting the building of the Golden Gate Bridge pay homage to Glen Wessel’s Professions mural series in the historic Laguna Honda lobby and provide a visual continuity between the old and the new buildings. The artist chose…

  • Balboa Has its Name up in Mosaic

    Balboa Has its Name up in Mosaic

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    Balboa at 39th and 34th Avenues These two sided sign posts on Balboa street were commissioned by the SF Arts Commission as part of the Balboa Streetscape Improvement Project.  They were created by artist Colette Crutcher, who has been in this site many times. The site of the Balboa Streetscape Improvement Project extends from 34th…

  • Esmeralda Slide Park

    Esmeralda Slide Park

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    Winfeld and Esmeralda Bernal Heights April 2017 In the 1970s a group of volunteers, with some help from the city, conceived and created Esmeralda Slide Park.  That volunteer organization later became the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. A New York Times article published in 2010 noted that “At the park’s dedication party in 1979, a shrieking Mayor Dianne Feinstein…

  • Bruton Sisters WPA Mural at the San Francisco Zoo

    Bruton Sisters WPA Mural at the San Francisco Zoo

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    San Francisco Zoo Mother’s Building These murals, on the Mother’s Building at the San Francisco Zoo were WPA projects.  They were done by three sisters: Esther Bruton, Helen Bruton and Margaret Bruton. Helen Bruton has murals in downtown San Francisco that you can read about here. Here is an excerpt explaining the sisters work on the…

  • Helen Bruton’s Tile Murals at the Golden West Hotel

    Helen Bruton’s Tile Murals at the Golden West Hotel

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    114 Powell Street Union Square In the very narrow entry way to the Hotel Union Square are these two exquisite tile murals.  While the hotel was originally built in 1908 for the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition, the murals were not added until 1935. The murals were done by Helen Bruton Bell (1898-1985)  Ms. Bell…

  • Tile Benches at Alta Plaza

    Tile Benches at Alta Plaza

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    Alta Plaza Steiner/Clay/Scott/Jackson Pacific Heights   There are two benches in the children’s area of Alta Plaza Playground covered in beautiful tile mosaics. Commissioned by Friends of Alta Plaza Park, the artist, Aileen Barr, combined handmade tile and mosaic to create the two seating walls for the newly renovated playground. A series of donor tiles…

  • A Mosaic of Bay Area History

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    San Francisco International Airport Terminal 1 Connector Level 2 Bay Area Victorian, Bay Area, Deco, Bay Area Funk by Joyce Kozloff – 1982 This artwork is inspired by historical decorative styles found in the Bay Area. The left panel, Bay Area Victorian, draws its sources from the ornament on old homes in the Mission District,…

  • Thousands and Thousands of Tiles

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    San Francisco International Airport International Terminal Main Hall Gateway 2000- by Ik-Joong Kang  This artwork contains 5,400 unique 3 in. x 3 in. paintings, wood carvings, tiles and cast acrylic cubes. The artist began working in this 3 in. x 3 in. format when he was a student and commuted long distances to various part-time…

  • Mission Dolores Mosaic

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    Mission Dolores 16th and Dolores The Mission District This mural is in the hallway between the Mission and the Basilica. The brass plaque that accompanies it reads: Guillermo Granizo 1923-1996 This ceramic mural is the work of Guillermo Granizo a native San Francisco Artist.  Shortly after Guillermo’s birth in 1923 the Granizo Family moved to…

  • GGP’s Sea Serpent

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    Koret Childrens Quarters Golden Gate Park This divine sea creature is by Phoebe Palmer. On an architectural scale, Phoebe is building densely textured, sculptural ferro-cement walls and working in mosaics and metal sculpture as well as her “normal” mediums of paint and pastels. Phoebe has taken the characters formerly inhabiting her paintings and pastels and cast…

  • Tile Art at Jackson Playground

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    Jackson Playground 17th and Arkansas Potrero One of three park reservations made by the Van Ness Ordinances of 1855 in working class Potrero Nuevo, the site was originally known as Jackson Square. Undeveloped and virtually ignored for more than 75 years, Jackson Square was made into a playground in the twentieth century. A 1930 map…

  • A Joan Brown Obelisk at 343 Sansome Street

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    343 Sansome Street The Financial District Four Seasons by Joan Brown This tiled obelisk is by Joan Brown. Joan Brown was an American figurative painter who was born in San Francisco and lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the “second generation” of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. She studied at…

  • La Madre Tonantsin

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    3495 16th Between Sanchez and Dehon Castro District Colette Crutcher is a multi discipline artist. Her career began with painting and printmaking, but now covers a broad spectrum, from very large to very small, from public to intensely personal, from abstract to figurative, and across a range of media: painting and drawing, collage, assemblage, paper mache,…

  • A Facelift for Junipero Serra Park

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    300 Stonecrest Drive Lakeside There are two ceramic tile murals by San Francisco artist Bean Finneran, installed in 2007 at Junipero Serra Playground in San Francisco. The pieces are part of the SFAC Civic art collection and cost $23,000. Employing just two shapes, squares and darts, Bean Finneran varied the color relationships to create two…

  • Aileen Barr’s work at West Portal Playground

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    West Portal Playground 131 Lenox Way A $1.5 million renovation project in 2005 saw the West Portal Park’s original clubhouse expanded and upgraded. The park includes a picnic area, playground and large play field. The building also features artwork commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission Public Art Program. “The Secret Garden,” a series of…

  • Hidden Gems in Bernal Heights

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    82 Coleridge Street Bernal Heights This tile mosaic is titled Colloidal Pool and is by Peter Almeida. Done in 1988 it is suggestive of a puddle with ripples moving concentrically over leaf sheaves.  The view from Coleridge Mini Park Coleridge Mini Park

  • Lincoln Park – Tile Bench

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    Lincoln Park/Sea Cliff 32nd and California * * Aileen Barr This project was made possible by the Friends of Lincoln Park, San Francisco Parks Trust and the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation. Aileen Barr has a large body of tile work around San Francisco. She studied Ceramic Design at the National College of…

  • Philadelphia – Following your spirit

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    My favorite artists are ones that find their passion and pursue it, with no thought to commercialism, or the sale.  The thing that is shunned by the neighbors, until they realize you aren’t a crazy old coot, you have a vision and it is just different. Well I found one of those in Philadelphia.  His…

  • San Francisco City College Mosaics

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    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…

  • Malibu, California – Adamson House

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    This is the Adamson House, also known as Vaquero Hill, a historic house with lovely grounds in Malibu, California.  It has been called the “Taj Mahal of Tile” due to its extensive use of decorative ceramic tiles created by the Malibu Potteries company. The house was built in 1930 for Rhoda Rindge Adamson and Merritt…