Lower Pacific Heights – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Tapestry of Life: The Warp and Weft of Care

Posted by Cindy on June 22, 2019

Jun 222019

CPMC Cathedral Hill Campus
1101 Van Ness Avenue

Deanna Marsh began by photographing medical gauze and digitally manipulating the image. This horizontal sculpture is metal and kiln-formed glass intended to “echo the woven tapestry beneath, becoming abstract Petri dishes of our individual biology with circulatory flow and beauty in each glass ring”.

Deanna Marsh earned her BFA at Rhode Island School of Design. After a successful career in graphic design, she went on to spend four years studying metalsmithing at Sierra College.

Marsh works primarily with glass and metals, recycling wherever possible, and utilizes solar energy in her studio, to power the long kiln-fired annealing process for each piece of glass.

CPMC Cathedral Hill is not open to the general public, with the exception of the lobby. This piece can be found in the atrium at the Van Ness Street entrance.

Conservatory of Flowers Photo Montage

Posted by Cindy on June 21, 2019

Jun 212019

CPMC Cathedral Hill Campus1101 Van Ness Avenue This photograph, by Stephan Bay, is a collage of CPMC employees. This Giclee on canvas was done in 2018. Stephen Bay is a landscape photographer. Born in Canada, Stephen studied engineering and computer science while learning photography on his own. After earning his Ph.D., Stephen moved to Silicon Valley to work as a data scientist. He married and became a US Citizen in 2008. In 2014 Stephen and his wife quit their jobs and began exploring the United States photographing as they went along. They eventually settled in San Diego where Stephen is Continue Reading

Paul Selinger piece is gone

Posted by Cindy on January 26, 2019

Jan 262019

This piece once stood in the Broderick and Bush Mini Park In 2010 the SFAC de-accessed this piece due to damage, one can assume it was destroyed. “Civic Art Collection Senior Registrar Allison Cummings informed the Committee of the need to remove Paul Selinger’s sculpture Untitled, 1971 (Accession #1971.44) from its current location at Broderick and Bush Mini Park due to the artwork’s advanced deterioration. Ms. Cummings stressed that as assessed by a Recreation and Parks Department structural engineer, the sculpture should be considered a threat to public safety and will need to be dismantled and stored on site while Continue Reading

Cosmo Cocktails

Posted by Cindy on January 21, 2014

Jan 212014

20 Cosmo Place Lower Nob Hill/Tenderloin This unassuming building has been providing fine drinks, food and happiness to San Francisco’s since 1951. Trader Vic’s opened in Cosmo Alley in 1951. The restaurant was built from an old corrugated parking garage. Passing along the narrow walk way through a tropical garden, customers entered the rustic shed. This photograph, from the archives of the San Francisco Chronicle (with no caption or story) must show the very beginnings of the place, if not the construction for its opening. While I spent fond nights there eating Pu pu Platters and downing Trader Vic’s Continue Reading

Knights Templar Building

Posted by Cindy on July 25, 2013

Jul 252013

2135 Sutter Street Western Addition This steel reinforced building with brick exterior walls trimmed in lots of terra cotta was designed by Matthew O’Brien and Carl Werner in the architectural style known as the Jacobean Phase of Medieval Revival. It was built in 1905 and 1906-1907. The building has been home to two institutions, the Knights Templar and the Baptist Church. The building was originally built for the Golden Gate Commandery #16 of the Knights Templar, a masonic order at the turn of the century. In the 1950’s there was a decline of masonic and other fraternal groups in the city, Continue Reading

Bufano at Westside Courts

Posted by Cindy on January 31, 2013

Jan 312013

Westside Courts Housing Project 2501 Sutter Street Lower Pacific Heights This sculpture, by well known San Francisco sculptor Beniamino Bufano, is titled Saint Francis on Horseback. Standing 8′ x 6′ and of black granite it is located in the central courtyard of the project. It was made in 1935 but not placed here until 1945. Westside Courts were built in 1943, Westside includes 136 units in six buildings that cover a full city block. Westside s unusual because it is located in a thriving, mixed-income neighborhood. Another distinction is in its construction, which relied on heavy cement blocks, creating buildings that Continue Reading

Living Walls

Posted by Cindy on April 20, 2011

Apr 202011

Using plants for architectural and artistic statements is as old as time, but I am fascinated about how it is becoming part of the main stream. I was driving down 10th and spotted this newly installed gem at the corner with Bryant. These things are so amazingly versatile. Indoors, outdoors, sun, shade, they apparently create their own atmosphere when inside so they aren’t bothered being inside shopping malls or the like. Patrick Blanc a French artist has been covering entire walls of buildings for 40 years. This one below is his at Marché des Halles in Avignon. You can read all Continue Reading