Elevators and Marine Engines

 Posted by on August 18, 2016
Aug 182016
 

235 First Street
Foundry Square

235 First Street Architecture of San Francisco

This wonderful building, sitting amongst all of the surrounding high-rises brings joy to the eye and a question to the mind.

The City of San Francisco has labeled this the H.N. Cook Belting Company designed by Ward and Blohme.  However the American Architect and Architecture Magazine, Volume 113 disputes that fact with this photograph.

The H.N. Cook Belting Company Architecture of San Francisco

The photo was accompanied by a full length article in the January to June 1918 issue.

The Western Architecture and Engineering Magazine – Volume 40-41 states that the building is the home to the B.C. Van Emon Elevator Company.

San Francisco Architecture B.C. Van Emon Elevator CompanyThis 1915 article stated that the B. C. Van Emon Elevator company had been in the building for several years.

Throughout the 1930s the building was occupied by the Thomson Machine Company with ads in Motor Boating Magazine. They left their mark with the ghost sign barely legible above the door.

Unfortunately the architect of the building, and the actual date of construction has been impossible for this writer to find.

None the less, it is a great building holding its own amongst the glass and steel that towers over it.

Foundry Square – Not Out of The Woods Yet

 Posted by on January 20, 2012
Jan 202012
 
Foundry Square - Not Out of The Woods Yet

Howard at First Street Foundry Square SOMA  Not Out of the Woods Yet by Richard Deacon 2003 In 2003 Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “Deacon’s “Not Out Of The Woods Yet” (2003) nests muscularly in a tight spot behind columns at the entrance to 500 Howard St., on the intersection’s northwest corner. The Bay Area has so far seen Deacon’s work in depth only once, in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s 1987 show “A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965.” Much of his sculpture turns on matters such as when an enclosure must count as Continue Reading

SOMA – Foundry Square

 Posted by on January 19, 2012
Jan 192012
 
SOMA - Foundry Square

Howard at First Street Foundry Square SOMA Untitled by Joel Shapiro 1996-1999 In 2003 Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “Shapiro’s renown rests on his having turned the vocabulary of minimal sculpture back toward figuration about 30 years ago. He took square wood beams, favorite forms of his older contemporary Carl Andre, and made structures of them that could be read as stick figures. Shapiro then abbreviated and exaggerated his work’s figural qualities so that they come and go depending on the viewer’s position and on his determination to see them. Built-in aspects of “bad fit”–apparent right angles Continue Reading

SOMA – Time Signature

 Posted by on January 18, 2012
Jan 182012
 
SOMA - Time Signature

Howard at First Street Foundry Square SOMA  Time Signature Richard Deutsch *Richard Deutsch has several sculptures around San Francisco.  This piece has it’s own video on Richard’s website, and I highly recommend that you go and view it.  The film is a work of art unto itself, and I could not do justice to the process that you are shown, but I will try to summarize the intent of the piece. He mentions that they wanted to use a light colored metal for the reflective properties and to interact with the glass.  The area that the sculpture is in is Continue Reading

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