Back in February I wrote about the Sansome Street entrance to the former San Francisco Stock Exchange teasing that the building had a fabulous interior without going into any further detail. The building was designed by James R Miller & Timothy Pflueger and despite the stock market crash in October 1929, the new trading floor was unveiled on January 4, 1930.

Michael Goodman, an architect, worked as a draftsman and interior designer with Pflueger around this time and it is his memory that Pflueger wanted to use individual works of art as specific pieces designed for the building. Goodman, himself, got the idea for the geometric ceiling in the foyer from a night club in Berlin.

Elsewhere in the building you can find art glass windows depicting hunting scenes and reliefs depicting sports such as golf and American football (such as this one).

The lounges and dining room of the tenth and eleventh floors were especially opulent employing the best materials and stylish furniture to complement the artworks.

This fireplace displays how the various materials were combined with the art.

The most impressive artwork in the building is
Allegory of California, a mural by Mexican artist Diego Rivera which spans the stairs between the tenth and eleventh floors. The mural was created in 1930 after the building was completed and was well received despite earlier concerns in some quarters over Rivera's Communist philosophies.

And if you can draw your eyes away from the mural, you'll notice that the railing of the staircase incorporates figures of a man at work and a man at play, although it is difficult to distinguish between the two in this photograph.
Reference:
Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger, by Therese Poletti, photography by Tom Paiva, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008