Public Art of San Francisco – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Handsignals

Posted by Cindy on August 17, 2015

Aug 172015

McCoppin Plaza
Market Street and Valencia

Titled Handsignals, this piece sits in a small park made available after the tearing down of the Central Freeway that once bi-sected the area. The McCoppin Hub Project was a joint project between SFMTA, SFAC and SFDPW. For this reason it was impossible for me to garner from the hundreds of meeting minutes that I read, exactly what this piece cost the taxpayers of San Francisco.

Originally proposed by Rebar the final product was created by MoreLab. Handsignals refers to the formal qualities of the numerous theater signs prevalent in the Mission District, and repurposes that vocabulary to “advertise” a new public space.

According to their website: “Handsignals repositions the meaning of the common pedestrian traffic signal by replacing the familiar “red hand” and “walking figure” with custom symbols designed to represent themes deeply imbedded in Mission District culture. The piece playfully explores the relationship between a community and its emblems, identity and its abstractions, the sign and its signifier. Lit both during the day and at night, the modules blink on and off in a slow, irregular pattern, creating new combinations of symbols whose meaning and relationship to the neighborhood will change as the neighborhood continues to evolve”.

Center of San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on July 13, 2015

Jul 132015

UN Plaza
Civic Center

What in the world is that brass cross in the middle of UN Plaza? That is Joel Pomerantz of Thinkwalks pointing to something most San Franciscans probably don’t even know is there, or why.

This is the spot used to measure the distance to and from the City of San Francisco to other cities around the world. Why here? Because this is where our original city hall once sat.

The Hall of records is the round building in the front, City Hall is the taller one in the back.

A common misconception is that distances shown on highway signs are always measured to the location of the main post office in the municipality. According to the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS): “The primary point of a populated place is the center of original place, if known, such as the city or town hall, main post office, or town square regardless of changes over time.”

The “X” is easy to find if you follow the Longitude and Latitude markers that represent San Francisco’s place on the map.

The granite used in these pieces is the same Sierra Granite used to build city hall.

These items were part of the 1995 redesign of the UN Plaza to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter around the corner in the Veterans War Memorial Building.

This redesign was done by landscape architect Andrew Detsch, of Berkeley, CA.

First Responder Plaza – SF

Posted by Cindy on May 4, 2015

May 042015

1245 Third Street
Mission Bay

The new City and County Public Safety Building houses the police administrative headquarters, a relocated district police station, a new district fire station, San Francisco’s SWAT team and fleet vehicle parking. Part of the design included the First Responder Plaza at the corner on Third Street, designed by artist Paul Kos who was responsible for the Poetry Garden in SOMA.

In First Responder Plaza, Paul Kos created a design around three central motifs standing for Police, Fire and Paramedic Services. A bronze bell, a seven point star and a conifer as a natural flag pole. According to Kos, “The three main elements comprise my three tenors, all unique icons, all on the same stage at the same time.”

The “All Is Well Bell” is suspended from a large red arch. Kos was inspired to incorporate a bell into his design after seeing multiple bells at the Fire Department Museum as well as in the Fire Department Repair and Maintenance shops he visited while doing research for this project.

Kos worked with bell foundry, Paccard, in Annecy, France the same foundry that cast many of the very large bells for the Campanile at UC Berkeley. (American bell foundries no longer cast large bells). The bell cost $300,000.

The seven point star, made of black granite was identified early on in his process as a respectful and poetic symbol for the Police, because it represents the department’s core values: truth, justice, fortitude, temperance, prudence, tolerance and brotherhood. The 22″ high star serves as a bench, as well as a symbolic focal point.

When full grown the conifer, the third element, will serve to provide a human touch.

The art budget for the Public Safety Building was $3.2 million. While it is difficult to determine through public records exactly what was spent on the plaza alone, it appears to be in the neighborhood of $850,000.

Home Savings and Public Art

Posted by Cindy on December 17, 2014

Dec 172014

98 West Portal Avenue
Corner of Vicente and West Portal
West Portal

This mosaic is on the outside of the bank that stands at the corner. At the time of the commission of the art (1976-77), the bank was a Home Savings Bank. This particular mural was a collaboration between Millard Owen Sheets, Denis O’Connor and designer Susan L. Hertel.

Millard Owen Sheets (June 24, 1907 – March 31, 1989) was a native California. He was a painter and a representative of the California School of Painting, later a teacher and educational director, and architect of more than 50 branch banks. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute.

According to San Francisco Mosaic: Sheets used his architectural firm to promote and illustrate his philosophy that art should be incorporated into every aspect of daily living. Sheets designed interior and exterior plans for over forty Home Savings and Loan bank branches in California. The distinctive modular design that Sheets created highlighted local historical events or natural features, and became synonymous with the Home Savings of America. In 1999 Washington Mutual acquired the bank. Much of this original work was funded through an active and supportive public art program that was part of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Denis O’Connor was the only child of a coal miner and his homemaker wife, O’Connor was born in 1933 in the English coastal town of Seaham Harbour. His mother died when he was 11. He earned a degree in drawing and sculpture from the Royal College of Art in London. With his wife and son, O’Connor came to the United States in 1959. O’Connor, was a mosaic muralist who executed massive portraits of idealized California life at many Home Savings of America buildings in the 1960s and 1970s as part of an ambitious public art program.

Susan Lautman Hertel, a former art student of Sheets, worked with him for 30 years, then took over his design firm when Sheets retired in the mid-70s. Hertel, who died of breast cancer at age 63 in 1993, attended Scripps College in Claremont, CA, which she entered in 1948. Originally from Illinois, she would marry, raise a family and live in Southern California before moving to a ranch in Cerrillos, New Mexico in 1980. She is known for both her mosaic work and her paintings prominently featuring animals.

There is an interesting explanation of the piece by a gentleman that appears to be the preeminent expert on Home Savings Murals, you can read it here.

Barnyard Watchdogs

Posted by Cindy on November 3, 2014

Nov 032014

San Francisco Zoo
Entry to the Children’s Zoo

Barnyard Watchdogs by Burt Brent

This cute sculpture and climbing item is by Dr. Burt Brent. Dr. Brent is a reconstructive plastic surgeon best known for his work in reconstructing the absent outer ear. He has repaired ear defects in 1,800 patients, most of them children born with ear deformities such as Microtia. He also reconstructs ears lost or due to some form of trauma. Dr. Brent is now retired.

Brent grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and was highly influenced by his maternal grandfather who taught him cabinetry and woodworking. Although he considered a career in art, he was always surrounded by medicine, because his father was a physician who had an office in the basement of their home.

As an avid naturalist, Brent is a member of the Society of Animal Artists and has created sculptures of numerous of birds and mammals, two of which grace the San Francisco Zoo.

Ndebele

Posted by Cindy on August 5, 2014

Aug 052014

1601 Griffith Street
BayView / Hunters Point

This abstract sculpture composed of three vertical elements, is titled Ndebele and is by Fran Martin. It was installed in 1987.

I have tried three times over many many months to find this piece. It is listed at the pump station but it is actually on the side in a small gated area off of Shafter Avenue.

Fran Martin received her M.A. in Art in 1973. She fabricated and exhibited sculpture until 1995. Since 1994, she has been co-founder of and ardent worker at the Visitacion Valley Greenway Project (VVGP).

The Griffith Pump Station was built in 1985, and is part of the SFPUC wastewater enterprise system.

Rain Portal

Posted by Cindy on April 7, 2014

Apr 072014

SFPUC Building
525 Golden Gate Avenue
Civic Center

Rain Portal by Ned Kahn. Kahn has several pieces around San Francisco that you can read about here.

Ned Kahn’s Rain Portal is located inside the lobby of the new Public Utilities building. Kahn’s Firefly graces the exterior of the building and you can read about it here.

Rain Portal seeks to permeate an interior architectural wall with rain. Drops of water falling inside of an undulating polycarbonate membrane suggests the endless cycle of evaporation and precipitation.

According to Kahn, “One of the paradoxes of the Rain Portal is that much of the entire history of architecture can be viewed as the endeavor to keep rain out. Here we have invited it in.”

The installation covers two walls located on either side of the lobby stairway. The installation is a self-sustaining system that continuously recycles water to create the illusion of rain inside the clear polycarbonate wall panels. The extruded polycarbonate has multiple cells of plastic that through which water is pumped up from a reservoir at the bottom of the panels and released as small drops into the top. The artwork was dedicated with the opening of the building in June 2012.

The installation of Rain Portal cost $24,800, and was done by Gizmo Art Productions. I was unable to find what the piece itself cost.

These two plaques are not part of Ned Kahn’s installation, but rather part of the buildings effort to be one of the foremost water conscious buildings in the world. An important reminder while California enters another year of severe drought.

This work has been deaccessioned.

Restoring Historic Murals

Posted by Cindy on January 10, 2014

Jan 102014

Franklin Square Park
2500 17th Street
Potrero Hill

Brotherhood of Man by Anthony Stellon

This once abandoned mosaic was found by David Schweisguth in 2006. While walking his beagle Huxley in Franklin Square Park one afternoon, Huxley sniffed around a large concrete slab serving as a makeshift potting table, Schweisguth looked under the plastic sheet covering the table top and found this treasure.

With the help of local mural expert Lillian Sizemore, who wrote A Guide to Mosaic Sites: San Francisco, they discovered that the artist was Anthony Stellon, who died in 2005.

Schwiesguth’s discovery came at the right time. A neighborhood group called Friends of Franklin Square had just formed and were raising funds to restore the 30-year-old, decaying park. When Schwiesguth and Sizemore brought the mosaic to the group’s attention, they decided to unite behind the cause and ask the city to restore it.

It took more than five years for the San Francisco Arts Commission to find funds for the restoration.

The challenge with restoring the piece was that the mosaic needed to be removed from its concrete backing and mounted on a waterproof material. The project cost $115,000.

The mural was originally a gift to the city from Mayor Joseph Alioto.

In the late sixties, when movie companies used San Francisco as a backdrop, the city had not yet begun to charge the film companies for film permits. Mayor Joseph Alioto negotiated with Warner Brothers Pictures when Bullitt was made for a one time donation of approximately $25,000 to be used for the construction of the new pool at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in the Hunter’s Point/Bayview neighborhood. With his personal funds, Mayor Alioto commissioned Anthony Stellon to create a mural for the building’s exterior.

Brotherhood of Man was the result. The mural depicts two figures, one black and one white, flying amidst the cosmos as they hold hands around the earth. Stellon, who was deeply moved by King’s assassination, infused the mural with symbolic meaning that visualizes world peace and harmony. An infinity symbol unifies the composition.

The mural was installed at the recreation center in 1968. In 1998, the mural was removed from the building and placed in storage to make way for a new swimming pool. How it ended up as support for a potting table at Franklin Square Park is still a mystery.

A Start to the Blue Greenway Art Trail

Posted by Cindy on February 27, 2013

Feb 272013

Arelious Walker and Innis Street originally at Cargo at Third Street
Bayview/Hunters Point

The refurbished piece

Red Fish by William Wareham on 3rd Street at Cargo

The original location for Willam Wareham’s Red Fish

This piece is titled Red Fish by William Wareham. Wareham has several pieces around San Francisco.

The piece was installed as part of San Francisco’s Blue Greenway project. The Blue Greenway is the City of San Francisco’s Port project to improve the City’s southerly portion of the 500 mile, 9-county, region-wide Bay Trail, as well as the newly established Bay Area Water Trail and associated waterfront open space system.

The alignment of the Blue Greenway generally follows the alignment of the Bay Trail and Bay Area Water Trail from Mission Creek on the north to the County line on the south.

Another component of the Blue Greenway is an Art Trail along the southern waterfront. The ultimate goal is to establish 8 -10 permanent sites that showcase temporary installation art and the work of local artists.

I found this fun little blurb in a press release from William Wareham:

“On my studio wall is a small sign (the lettering disappearing from age) that says: “Do not be afraid!” Perhaps intended as a morale booster to those WWII sailors going off to war from this shipyard: it now acts as an aesthetic reminder to pursue the creative act with vigor. But what is that? Is it to take three-dimensional form to where it has not been before or mine the turf that others have excavated in the belief of finding new harmonies? Whichever path, to activate space with steel is a challenge. I try to resolve this with both knowledge and intuition asking myself constantly; “Is this solution too predictable?” I rework and change the forms to get a more dynamic relationship, interesting intervals, tension in the negative volumes or contrasting scale; all with the purpose of bringing a great sense of visual delight to our lives.”

Red Fish was installed in 2006 and did not age well. Red is a difficult color to keep vibrant in any environment, but the rest of the piece is not doing well either.

The San Francisco Art Commission has said that the piece will remain in this location for five years with an option to renew.

Walker is a part of the Hunters Point Neighborhood and worked closely with the Bayview Historic Society, who raised the money for the refurbishment, to keep the piece in the Bayview Hunters Point area.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

Posted by Cindy on May 29, 2012

May 292012

Telegraph Hill

Coit Tower

To understand Coit Tower you must first understand Lillie Hitchcock Coit. A nice tale is told here from the Virtual San Francisco History Museum written by: By Frederick J. Bowlen, Battalion Chief, San Francisco Fire Department.

One of the most unusual personalities ever connected with our Fire Department was a woman. She was Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who was destined not only to become a legend but to attain that eminence long before her life ended.

She came to this city in 1851 from West Point, where her father had been an army doctor. Seven years later, when only 15 years old, she began her famous career with Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 5.

One afternoon that pioneer fire company had a short staff on the ropes as it raced to a fire on Telegraph Hill. Because of the shortage of man power, the engine was falling behind. Oh, humiliating and better was the repartee passed by Manhattan No. 2 and Howard No. 3 as the total eclipse seemed to be but a matter of seconds. Then, suddenly there came a diversion. It was the story of Jeanne d’Arc at Orleans, The Maid of Sargossa and Molly Pitcher of Revolutionary fame all over again.Pretty and impulsive Lillie Hitchcock, on her way home from school, saw the plight of the Knickerbocker and tossing her books to the ground, ran to a vacant place on the rope. There she exerted her feeble strength and began to pull, at the same time turning her flushed face to the bystanders and crying: “Come on, you men! Everybody pull and we’ll beat ‘em!”…

It continues:When Mrs. Coit died here in July 22, 1929, at the age of 86, she gave practical evidence of her affection for San Francisco. She left one-third of her fortune to the city “to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved.”For several years after her death, there was question as to the most fitting interpretation of the “appropriate manner” in which to make the memorial. The executors of her will at last determined to erect a memorial tower in honor of this colorful woman.

Coit Tower was built in 1933. The concrete tower was constructed by Arthur Brown Jr., best known for City Hall. The tower is adorned with one simple ornament by Robert Bordman Howard, the phoenix, symbolizing San Francisco’s repeated growth after its many fires.

The structure is made of unpainted reinforced concrete. Contrary to urban legend, the building was not made to resemble a fire hose.

There is a small studio apartment on the second floor of the tower, which was originally used as lodging for the structure’s caretaker.

If you are interested in learning more about Coit Tower, I highly recommend Masha Zakheim’s book Coit Tower, San Francisco Its History and Art

The Faces of 50 UN Plaza

Posted by Cindy on March 7, 2001

Mar 072001

50 UN Plaza
City Center

The Federal Building of San Francisco was vacated by the US Government in 2007 when they built a newer building in Civic Center. It has recently undergone a $121 million restoration and will be the offices of Section 9 GSA.

This article is about the exterior of the building.

In 1927, the government allocated $2.5 million for the Federal Building’s design and construction, although final costs reached a total of $3 million. Architect Arthur Brown, Jr. designed the building, which was constructed between 1934 and 1936.

Arthur Brown, Jr. (1874-1957) was born in Oakland, California. He graduated from the University of California in 1896, where he and his future partner, John Bakewell, Jr. were protégés of Bernard Maybeck. Brown went to Paris and graduated from the École des Beaux Arts in 1901. Before returning to San Francisco to establish his practice with Bakewell, the firm designed the rotunda for the “City of Paris” in the Neiman Marcus department store in San Francisco. Other notable San Francisco buildings include Coit Tower; San Francisco War Memorial Opera House; and the War Memorial Veterans Building. He was a consulting architect for the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.

The Federal Building is an excellent example of Second Renaissance Revival architecture. The six-story steel frame is encased in fireproof concrete with concrete flooring and roof slabs, important features after the 1906 earthquake and fire. The street elevation walls are constructed of brick but faced with granite, with the exception of a section of the McAllister Street elevation, which is faced in terra cotta.

Male and female mascarons (carved faces) adorn the exterior. The carvings sport different horticulturally themed headpieces, including corn, wheat, cat tails, and oak leaves. There are 18 of them in total.

Sadly it is not known who did all these wonderful carvings for the building.

The Electric Sun Wall

Posted by Cindy on January 13, 2000

Jan 132000

Pier 15
Embarcadero

The Electric Sun Wall, along the south side of Pier 15, references a modified schematic of the museum’s complex photovoltaic energy system. The design elegantly expresses what’s going on behind the ten-foot wall of half-inch-thick steel plates, where photovoltaic energy gathered from the museum’s solar panels is converted into usable electricity. The project was designed by Mark McGowan.

The Exploratorium intends to become the largest net-zero energy use museum in the U.S., if not the world. This goal is being supported by the Exploratorium’s new partnership with SunPower, a Silicon Valley-based manufacturer of high efficiency solar technology. The Exploratorium’s new home uses a 1.3-megawatt SunPower solar power system to offset its electricity demand.

“This project combines an effort to both innovate and think critically about the impact science can have on the world. Our net-zero goal is, in part, a way to reduce our global footprint and help improve the community we’ve been a part of for more than 40 years,” said Dennis Bartels, PhD, Executive Director of the Exploratorium. “Net-zero is a process – and an opportunity for the public to learn with us.”

Mark McGowan is the art director for the Exhibit Environment for the Exploratorium and head of the EE Design department with a staff of five artists and designers. He and his staff work with artists, exhibit developers, writers, and scientists to create meaningful environments and clear signage and labels for the hundreds of exhibits on the museum floor. Before joining the Exploratorium, Mark received his undergraduate degree in San Diego in Filmmaking/Photography/Architecture and an MFA in Filmmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute.