SFGH Healing Garden

 Posted by on March 28, 2013
Mar 282013
 

1001 Potrero
San Francisco General Hospital

SFGH Healing Garden

The artist designed this small garden, in 1993, as an extension to an existing hospital memorial garden and as a place to provide seating sheltered from the wind. A red gravel walkway, edged in white granite city-surplus curbstones, forms a double helix, which is symbolic of life. The seating is made from salvaged granite.

Double Helix at SFGH gardenLook closely, you can see the double helix in the planter on the left.

Healing Garden at SFGH by Peter RichardsBenny Bufano’s Madonna graces the back of the garden.

Salvaged Granite SFGH Healing Garden

Peter Richards is a long-term Artist in Residence at the Exploratorium (an innovative science museum in San Francisco, California) Peter shares his enthusiasm for nature and the elements through his work. His engaging outdoor public sculptures and immersive landscaped environments bring such phenomena as wind and tidal movement into a larger cultural context. Peter is responsible for the Wave Organ in the bay, and the Philosophers Walk at McClaren Park. He holds an MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture in Baltimore, Maryland and a BA in Art from Colorado College.

The garden is part of the SFAC collection.

Philosophers Walk on the Top of the World

 Posted by on November 22, 2012
Nov 222012
 

John McLaren Park
Mansell Drive and John F. Shelley Drive
Excelsior and Visitacion Valley

This is the view towards downtown San Francisco from John McLaren Park. Named for John McLaren, the superintendent of Golden Gate Park from 1887 to 1943, it is the second largest park in the city, after Golden Gate Park.

Within McLaren Park’s 312 acres are lawns and planted gardens, a lake and a reservoir, a golf course, picnic areas, playgrounds, baseball diamonds, basketball and tennis courts, an indoor swimming pool, a soccer field, dog play areas, and an amphitheater. Rich in native plants and animals, the park also contains 165 acres that have been designated a significant natural resource area and are managed by the Recreation and Parks Department’s Natural Areas Program.

Miles of paved and unpaved trails wind through and around McLaren Park’s rolling hills, many of them built during the Depression by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). You can hike through a variety of habitats, both native and introduced, including forests, grasslands, and marshy riparian areas, where springs feed Yosemite Creek.

In the 1840s, the land that is now McLaren Park was part of a rancho granted to a pioneer merchant by the Mexican government. In 1905, a subdivision was proposed for the area, but architect Daniel Burnham proposed setting the hilly areas aside for a public park. In 1926 the city’s Board of Supervisors began the process of creating the park, and in 1934 John McLaren took part in its dedication. In 1958, the final properties were purchased, bringing the park to its current size.

The view towards the bay, includes the San Francisco airport and the Cow Palace.

All through McLaren Park is a Philosophers walk.  Designed by Peter Richards and Susan Schwatzenberg.  The walk is a 2.7 mile loop around the parks perimeter and includes places to rest and view the landscape.  Conducive to personal thought and contemplation the route was chosen to highlight the interrelationships between the area’s ecology, geography and history.

One of the many educational stops found along the Philosophers walk

Philosopher’s walks exist in many cities.  In the hills above Heidelberg are trails where scholars and students walk, ponder and debate issues of the day.  A path through the University of Toronto traces the route of an underground stream.  A path along a canal in Kyoto is lined with cherry trees where Kitaro Nishada, an early 20th century philosopher walked in meditation.

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Granite markers show the way

Peter Richards is a long-term Artist in Residence at the Exploratorium (an innovative science museum in San Francisco, California) Peter shares his enthusiasm for nature and the elements through his work. His engaging outdoor public sculptures and immersive landscaped environments bring such phenomena as wind and tidal movement into a larger cultural context. Peter is responsible for the Wave Organ in the bay. He holds an MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture in Baltimore, Maryland and a BA in Art from Colorado College.

Susan Schwatzenberg is a senior artist at the Exploratorium, where she has been a curator, photographer, designer, and artist, and served as director of media. At the museum she has participated in many exhibit development and Web-based projects. She was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, the California College of Art, and Stanford University.

Philosopher’s Way is a joint project of the San Francisco Arts Commission and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in connection with the replacement of the La Grande Water Tank located above the park reservoir, popularly known as the Blue Tower.  Some architectural enhancements for the new tank were suggested but not implemented, and funds that might have been used on the tower building were made available for public art in the park. The project cost $145,000.

Here is a link to a map that covers the walk and all the “musing” stations.

San Francisco’s Wave Organ

 Posted by on July 25, 2012
Jul 252012
 
Yacht Road
Marina Green
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The View towards the wave organ from Marina Green
Looking back towards downtown and Fort Mason from the Wave Organ
The Golden Gate Bridge from the Wave Organ
Palace of Fine Arts and the San Francisco Yacht Club, view from the Wave Organ
The Wave Organ is an exhibit of the Exploratorium.  It is a wave-activated acoustic sculpture developed by Peter Richards and was installed in collaboration with sculptor and master stonemason George Gonzales. Inspiration for the piece came from artist Bill Fontana’s recordings made of sounds emanating from a vent pipe of a floating concrete dock in Sydney, Australia.

In 1980, Richards (a Senior Artist at the Exploratorium for many years) received a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that enabled him to conduct an extensive period of investigation into the physicality of the Wave Organ phenomenon.

The Wave Organ is located on a jetty that forms the small Boat Harbor in the Marina district of San Francisco, walking distance from the Exploratorium. The jetty itself was constructed with material taken from Laurel Hill Cemetery, providing a wonderful assortment of carved granite and marble, which was used in the construction of this piece. The installation includes 25 organ pipes made of PVC and concrete located at various elevations within the site, allowing for the rise and fall of the tides. Sound is created by the impact of waves against the pipe ends and the subsequent movement of the water in and out of the pipes. The sound heard at the site is subtle, requiring visitors to become sensitized to its music, and at the same time to the music of the environment. The Wave Organ sounds best at high tide.

Laurel Hill Cemetery also called Lone Mountain: A “who’s who” of early San Francisco occupied the guest list of the “silent city” including: Andrew Halladie, the inventor of the cable car; David Broderick, the popular US senator, who was killed in a duel at Lake Merced by the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court; James King of William, whose assassination resurrected the Vigilantes in 1856; Senators Latham, Baker, Sharon, Fair and even Napoleon’s son.

Classical marble tombs and elaborate monuments glorified the affluent departed while a more humble section was reserved for the poor. A vault in the cemetery was devoted to the Chinese, but when “the Chinese must go!” movement gathered steam in 1870s, it was “bespattered with mud and filth, battered with stones and sometimes defaced in a most irreverent manner. The animosity that people bear towards the living, seems to extend even beyond the grave.”

Until Golden Gate Park came of age, Lone Mountain Cemetery served as a park where families would picnic and young couples would promenade among the dead.

Lone Mountain Cemetery was so successful that during the 1860s three other cemeteries were developed to the south, on the slopes adjacent to Lone Mountain. To avoid confusion, it made sense that Lone Mountain Cemetery, which was not located on Lone Mountain, changed its name to Laurel Hill in 1867.    Western Neighborhood Projects

San Francisco, like many major cities, has no cemeteries within the city limits.  This was due to health considerations in the early part of the 20th century.  The history of the removal of Laurel Hill Cemetery was especially contentious, and if you are interested, there is an interesting article about its history at SF Genealogy.

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