Maternite

 Posted by on September 8, 2014
Sep 082014
 

Jewish Senior Living Group
Orignally known as Jewish Home of the Aged
120 Silver Avenue
Excelsior District

Maternite by Ursula Malbin

Ursula Malbin was born on April 12, 1917, in Berlin to Jewish parents, both doctors of medicine. While in Germany she worked as a cabinet-maker. In 1939, a few weeks before World War II, but after her family had already left the country, she fled Nazi Germany, alone, penniless and without a passport.

She found herself in Geneva when the war broke out, and there she met the sculptor Henri Paquet, whom she married in 1941. Since 1967, Ursula Malbin has divided her creative life between the Artists’ Village of Ein Hod in Israel and the village of Troinex near Geneva in Switzerland.

Ursula Malbin

Maternite was a gift to the Jewish Home by Mr. and Mrs. Victor Marcus in 1970.

Jewish Home San Francisco

According to the Jewish Home Website:

The Jewish Home of San Francisco first opened its doors to residents in 1891. The complex has undergone many periods of development, including the construction of a Brutalist-style tower known as “Annex A” in 1969, designed by Howard A. Friedman, and its associated courtyard and fountain in 1970, designed by Lawrence Halprin. The courtyard is enclosed by Annex A (now known as the Goodman Building) and the Beaux Arts-inspired Main Building on an almost 9-acre site.

Brutalist Tower at Jewish Home

The design for the courtyard employs a central fountain, a generous expanse of lawn and deciduous and evergreen trees to create an urban oasis for residents. The fountain is composed of a series of cascading, rectilinear, overlapping concrete planes, animated with water that streams over them and collects in a shallow sunken pool. The concrete planes form an almost stage-like horizontal surface, upon which reclines a mother and child sculpture by Israeli artist Ursula Malbin. The fountain and its foreground apron are nestled into a shallow-sloping lawn edged with a curvilinear concrete seat wall and wide sidewalk with moveable seating. A mixture of pine trees and pollarded sycamores create a buffer along the courtyard’s edge.

The significance of Halprin’s own Jewish heritage and his role as an active member of the 1970 Jerusalem Committee, assessing the city’s master plan at the time of this commission, brings a unique cultural dimension to the importance of this Bay Area project.

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Although you must enter the main building to access the garden, the Jewish Home is extremely accommodating, and this was not a problem what-so-ever on the day that I visited.

West Coast War Memorial to the Missing

 Posted by on September 10, 2013
Sep 102013
 

Presidio
Lincoln and Harrison Boulevards

West Coast Memorial to the Missing

This memorial is in the memory of the soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and coast guardsmen, who lost their lives in service of their country in the American coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean during World War II. The memorial consists of a curved gray granite wall decorated with a bas relief eagle sculpture on the left end of the memorial and a statue of Liberty on its right flank. On the wall are inscribed the name, rank, organization and State of each of the 412 American missing whose remains were never recovered or identified.

WWII memorial to the missing in SF PresidioThe architect was Hervey Parke Clark, a Detroit native. Mr. Clark studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He moved to San Francisco in 1932 and practiced  until 1970. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Other than the  war memorial in the Presidio, Clarks work included buildings at Stanford University and the University of California at Santa Barbara and the United States consulate in Fukuoka, Japan.

The Landscape Architect was Lawrence Halprin who has appeared in this website several times before.

Jean de Marco sculpture

The sculptor was Jean de Marco, who won the 1965 Henry Hering Memorial Award for his work here.  Jean de Marco was born on May 2, 1898 in Paris, France.  While in Paris he served as an apprentice at the Attenni and Sons Studios, a statuary, stone and marble carving atelier. De Marco studied at the art schools of Paris from 1912-1917 and at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs.   After serving in the army in 1917 he continued his studies in casting and finishing.

De Marco came to the US in 1928 and settled in New York. De Marco taught at Columbia University, The National Academy of Design and Iowa State University.  He died in 1990.

Jean de Marco memorial to the missing of WWII

 

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Jean de Marco Presidio

Ruth Asawa at Ghirardelli Square

 Posted by on August 27, 2013
Aug 272013
 

Ghirardelli Square
Fisherman’s Wharf

Ruth Asawa fountain ghirardelli square

This fountain is titled Andrea’s Fountain and is by Ruth Asawa.  It sits in Ghirardelli Square.

There is a plaque next to the fountain that tells the story of the piece, it reads:

Then-owner William Roth selected Ruth Asawa, well known for her abstract, woven-wire sculptures, to design and create the centerpiece fountain for Ghirardelli Square.  Although it was unveiled amid some controversy in 1968, Asawa’s objective was to make a sculpture that could be enjoyed by everyone.  She spent one year thinking about the design and another year sculpting it from a live model and casting it in bronze.  Although landscape architect Lawrence Halprin attacked Asawa’s design of a nursing mermaid seated on sea turtles for not being a “serious” work, Asawa’s intentions were clear: “For the old it would bring back the fantasy of their childhood, and for the young it would give them something to remember when they grow old!  “I wanted to make something related to the sea…I thought of all the children, and maybe even some adults, who would stand by the seashore waiting for a turtle or a mermaid to appear.  As you look at the sculpture you include the Bay view which was saved for all of us, and you wonder what lies below that surface.”  The most photographed feature of Ghirardelli Square the fountain was named in honor of Andrea Jepson, the woman who served as the model for the mermaid.

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I found the sign to be of interest as I had always heard of this conflict between my two heroes, and it was nice that they put a sign up to “clear the air”.  Lawrence Halprin was responsible for Levi Plaza and was a man I admired both as a visionary and a legend in his field.  Ruth Asawa, who has appeared many times in this website is also one of my favorite local artists.

Andrea's fountain ghirardelli square

As far as Ghirardelli Square: San Franciscan William M. Roth and his mother bought the land in 1962 to prevent the square from being replaced with an apartment building. The Roths hired landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and the firm Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons to convert the square and its historic brick structures to an integrated restaurant and retail complex. Ghirardelli Square was the first major adaptive re-use project in the United States.

Frogs in a fountain at ghirardelli square

Sadly, Ruth Asawa passed away earlier this month.  The link to a lovely tribute in the San Francisco Chronicle can be read here.

Turtle in a fountain at ghirardelli square

UN Plaza

 Posted by on August 5, 2011
Aug 052011
 
Civic Center – San Francisco
United Nations Plaza

United Nations Plaza is an area off of Market Street with a walkable corridor straight to Civic Center, which includes City Hall and Herbst Theatre.  The United Nations Charter was signed in the War Memorial Veterans Building’s Herbst Theatre in 1945, leading to the creation of the United Nations.

According to Wikipedia “Civic Center has a seedy, run-down, high crime reputation and appearance with large amounts of Homeless encampments which has prevented it from attracting the large amounts of tourists seen in other areas of the city. Despite repeated redevelopment of Civic Center over the years aimed primarily at discouraging the homeless from camping there, large amounts of homeless continue to camp and loiter in the area.”  Sadly, this is true.

The architecture of the Plaza itself is really beautiful.  It was designed by world famous Lawrence Halprin in the 1970s.  It is lined with granite columns engraved with a particular year and the countries that were inducted into the U.N. during that year.  On the walkway are engraved sayings promoting peace over war, and there is of course, the ubiquitous water feature.

Sadly, none of this beauty has kept the less fortunate from making it a play ground and scaring others away.

Looking from the Water fountain towards City Hall
Looking Back towards Market Street
It was a beautiful day and really good music could be heard for blocks.  These fellas,  Machaiara,  (apparently are a Nonprofit, Non Denominational Christian Music Outreach & Support Ministry), were there to convert the onlookers.  Not sure if it is proper to mix church and state, but I can promise everyone was enjoying their music.

UN Plaza Fountain

 Posted by on March 7, 2001
Mar 072001
 

UN Plaza
Civic Center

UN Plaza Fountain San Francisco

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 Lawrence Halprin.  The Plaza was a joint effort between Halprin, Swiss architect Mario Ciampi and John Carl Warnecke.

The fountain is intended to represent the seven continents of the world.  Each “landmass” is tied together by the water symbolizing the ocean.

According to an April 26, 1977 San Francisco Chronicle article: The fountain was to be highly computerized.  “On each of the nine spurting slabs of the fountain will be a wind measuring device and if it is real windy, the spurts will slow down or stop altogether to keep passerby from getting sprayed.  Second, the computer will cause the depth of the waters in the fountain’s 100 foot wide basin to vary from bone dry to eight feet.”

According to the designer, Lawrence Halprin, this change in water height was to simulate the tides of the bay.  None of these items were maintained properly and no longer work.

Lawrence Halprin UN Plaza fountain

On the top stone far left is written:  “The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation….It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.”   This is a quote from Franklin Roosevelt.  The entire plaza was designed and built to honor the 30th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter that took place in the San Francisco War Memorial.

Designed in 1975 the fountain is made of 673 blocks of granite weighing between 3 to 4 million tons, it is 165 feet long and cost $1.2 million.

UN Plaza Fountain designed by Lawrence Halprin

The fountain has had mixed reviews over the years. When it was dedicated in 1975, then-U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young described it as “a tribute to the U.N.’s goals of seeking peaceful resolutions to international rivalries.”

But then-Chronicle architecture critic Allan Temko described it as “pretentious schmaltz . . . whose ‘tidal pools’ are supposed to simulate global oceanic action but rarely work and merely toss around empty muscatel bottles.”

Homeless in UN Plaza

The Plaza has the distinction of being in the Hall of Shame of the Project for Public Spaces, and it has been a source of controversy, anger and neglect for many years.

If you are interested in learning more about the problems of UN Plaza and how the fountain fits into these problems, there is a fabulous 30 minute radio show that you can listen to here.

The original design for the UN Fountain submitted to the SFAC

The original design for the UN Fountain submitted to the SFAC

I want to thank Joel Pomerantz of Thinkwalks for going to the San Francisco library and sending me the entire file to “prove a point”.  I am grateful for my friends that care about the minutia of San Francisco history as much as I do.

The fountain from Google Earth 2015

Levi Plaza Brings the Sierras to San Francisco

 Posted by on January 11, 2000
Jan 112000
 

1155 Battery
The Embarcadero

Levi Plaza Park

In 1982, the Haas family (heirs to  Levi Strauss) were looking to build a new corporate campus for the Levi Corporation. They called upon Lawrence Halprin to design the plaza for the campus. While prolific, Halprin is best known for Sea Ranch in California and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C. Sometimes referred to as “Modernism’s Olmsted,” Halprin is one of the most celebrated landscape architects of the late-20th and early-21st century.

From the beginning, the Haas family requested that the company’s values be incorporated into the design. They desired a “sensitivity to detailing and high standards of workmanship” and  expressed the following sentiments: “monumental architecture is not our style,” “The Plaza too should be distinctive,” and “Quality never goes out of style.”

Creek

Halprin divided his design for Levi Plaza’s five acres into two parts: a hard park and a soft park. The hard park is similar to a European plaza. The soft park was described by Halprin as a “transplanted piece of the Sierras.” In part, this is in homage to Levi Strauss himself, who got his start selling riveted, denim work pants to miners in the Sierra Nevada.

The soft park is an open space easily accessible to anyone that chooses to enter. This portion of Levi Plaza fills a triangular lot surrounded by The Embarcadero, and Battery and Union streets.

Creek

This “transplanted Sierras” includes open water, fountains and attractive nuisances (anything on a premises that might attract children into danger or harm) that would not work in another environment. Thanks to 24-hour, 365-day security, this type of appealing, open design is allowed to exist in an urban environment. Unlike public parks that are funded by tax payers and subject to public use-be it for picnics or protests like OWS-Levi’s Plaza has an autonomy that comes with private funding.

Fountain

A waterfall at the end of the park is a well recognized fixture of Halprin’s designs. This waterfall flows into a gentle stream that snakes throughout the park. Lined with granite boulders that act like sculpture, the stream is caressed by artificially constructed grassy burms sheltering the visitor from noises that emanate from the streets surrounding the park.

When the park ran $4 million over budget, the Haas family chose to pay for it out of their own personal funds. They have also made provisions to keep the park maintained in perpetuity.

Bridge

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