Walter Danforth Bliss – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

The Masonic Temple – 25 Van Ness

Posted by Cindy on April 26, 2013

Apr 262013

Masonic Temple
25 Van Ness
Civic Center

Walter Danforth Bliss and William Baker Faville were the architects of this, the second Masonic Lodge in San Francisco.

The first lodge, at 1 Montgomery Street, was built in 1860 and burned down in the 1906 fire. In 1911 the Masonic Temple Association, headed by William Crocker, laid a 12—ton cornerstone (the largest ever in California at that time) for their new building. Two years later a grand parade of 8,000 Masons, with Knights Templar on horseback, marked its dedication.

Cornerstone

An outstanding example of the Beaux-Arts period, the temple is primarily Italian Gothic in design, with a Romanesque—style arched entrance and touches inspired by cathedrals in France.

The entrance is through this elegant and noble portal, under a semi-circular hood supported on corbels formed by the stone figures of lions. The tympanum shows three allegorical figures in relief by New York Sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman (The future creator of the Winged Head Liberty Dime and the Walking Liberty Half Dollar), consisting of three figures of Charity, Fortitude and Truth. Beneath, the lintel is a row of nine smaller figures by San Francisco artist Ralph Stackpole, representing David, Abraham, St. John the Divine, Nathan the prophet, Moses, Aaron, St. John the Baptist, Joseph and Jonathan.

The 1913 Chamber of Commerce Handbook for San Francisco declared, “One of the few buildings in America comparable to some of the good buildings in Europe is the Masonic Temple.” And the 1919 Architectural Review said, “Bliss & Faville’s Masonic Temple is widely known as one of the best Masonic structures, both inside and out. . . . It looks like what it is, and this cannot always be said of lodges and fraternity buildings.”

The sculpture of King Solomon is also by Adolph Alexander Weinman. The canopy itself is adorned with sculptured angels, and with enshrined allegorical figures all done by Ralph Stackpole . The man with the capital represents the Builder: the one with the book, Social Order; the one with the lyre, Reverence for Beauty of the World; the one with his hands on his breast, Reverence for the Mystery of the Heavens.

Walter Danforth Bliss was born in Nevada in 1872, the fourth of five children born to Duane and Elizabeth Bliss. Duane Bliss had migrated out to California from Massachusetts during the gold rush period and had become a partner in a Nevada Bank, which was purchased by the Bank of California. Later Duane formed a partnership with Bank of California President, Darius Ogden Mills, in the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company. This successful venture secured the education of the Bliss’ children, each of whom was sent back to Massachusetts for schooling at MIT.

At MIT, Walter Bliss met his future partner William Baker Faville. Faville, more than 5 years his senior, was born in San Andreas, California, but had grown up in western New York State, and had already served an apprenticeship in Buffalo with architects Green & Wicks. Bliss and Faville both left MIT in 1895 and began working at the prominent New York firm of McKim, Mead & White. Although neither appears to have attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, they would have been exposed to its philosophy in New York at McKim, Mead & White and also at the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects in New York, of which John Galen Howard was then President.

In 1898 the pair decided to form a partnership and selected San Francisco as the city in which to work.

The freemasons moved from this building in 1958, it is now home to a number of city and county departments, including the San Francisco Arts Commission, the New Conservatory Theatre, and the San Francisco Parking Division.

It allegedly sits along the outlines of a pyramid shape planned for the streets of San Francisco by various influential Freemasons. The shape reflects a prominent Freemason symbol and also the pyramid in the Great Seal of the United States. Supposedly, the first diagonal runs from Market to Mission Streets, the second runs along Montgomery Avenue, and the base is formed by Van Ness. The Transamerica Pyramid sits at the capstone.

Two Old Banks Still Stand Proud

Posted by Cindy on March 16, 2001

Mar 162001

Grant Avenue and Market Street

Many critics of historical preservation projects complain that the process leaves the building frozen in time. Adaptive re-use proves that this does not need to be the case.

Adaptive re-use, which adapts buildings for new uses while retaining their historic features, can also a sustainable form of development that reduces waste, uses less energy and scales down on the consumption of building materials. San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square remodel in 1964 marked the first adaptive re-use project in the United States and San Francisco has never looked back.

A prime example of adaptive re-use in San Francisco can be found when comparing the two, classic Beaux Arts buildings that make up the stately entrance onto Grant Avenue from Market Street, the one street in San Francisco that comes closest to embodying the City Beautiful movement espoused by Daniel Burnham.

Coincidentally, both buildings were originally banks. Standing at 1 Grant Avenue is San Francisco Landmark #132: built in 1910 as the Savings Union Bank it was reconfigured for retail through adaptive re-use in the 1990s. The Savings Union Bank was designed by Walter Danforth Bliss and William Baker Faville. Both gentlemen were graduates of MIT and began their San Francisco practice in 1898.

This steel frame building is clad in gray granite. Six Ionic columns hold up its massive pediment 38 feet high. This modified domed temple is derived from the Roman Pantheon. The pediment, designed and sculpted by Haig Patigian, houses a Bas Relief of Liberty. Patigian, an Armenian by birth who spent most of his career in San Francisco, was one of the cities most prolific sculptors during his time.

At one time the front was graced with bronze doors. These doors consisted of four panels designed by Arthur Mathews and were said to be “descriptive of the historical succession of the races in California.” First the Indian, then the Spaniard who was typified by a Franciscan monk, next a miner representing the “American” and then an allegorical representation of a San Franciscan shown as the ideal figure of a youth beside a potter’s wheel modeling one of the new buildings in the city. Those doors have been replaced with glass.

Interior of Retail establishment at 1 Grant Avenue (photo courtesy of Goldstick Lighting Company).

Inside are eight Tavernelle (an old building stone term that means spotted or mottled) marble Corinthian pilasters and columns thirty feet high. These support the main cornice, which is surmounted by an attic and coffered ceiling. The walls are not of marble but of Caen stone. Caen stone is a limestone quarried in France near the city of Caen. It was first used in the Gallo-Roman period. (the period when Gaul was under Roman influence)

Across the street, also built in 1910, at a cost of $1.5 million, stands the Union Trust Company Building, San Francisco Landmark #131. Union Trust merged with Wells Fargo Bank in 1923. The building still houses a Wells Fargo Bank branch.

Photo Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.

Clinton Day was the architect of this Neoclassical Beaux Arts building. According to the July 1, 1908 San Francisco Call “The structure at Market Street and Grant Avenue Will Be Handsome and Commodious.” Day came from a distinguished California family. His father was State Senator Sherman Day and co-founder of College of California, the precursor to the University of California Berkeley. Clinton Day was a graduate of College of California.

This modified temple design is without a pediment. Its beautiful layered façade consists of carved granite ornamentation, derived from classical antiquity that includes ten columns, a bracketed overhang and a roof crowned by a balustrade parapet. This is all accented by dark iron window framing. The curvature on the Market Street side grounds it nicely to its location.

This well-heeled area of Market Street makes these two banks stand proud, unlike the rundown Mid Market area that holds the Hibernia Bank.

Pediment at 1 Grant Avenue designed and sculpted by Haig Patigian.