SF Merchandise Mart, San Francisco

I took these photos of the SF Merchandise Mart at 1335 Market Street, San Francisco a few years ago so you can still see the SF Mart signage at the far end of the façade but this 1939 Art Deco building has a new tenant.

The building has undergone extension restoration under the supervision of Komorous-Towey Architects and last year Twitter moved in.

You can see some more recent photos at US Nation Trust for Historic Preservation blog, PreservationNation.

References:
Komorous-Towey Architects website [Slideshow] Twitter Moves HQ to San Francisco’s Art Deco Merchandise Mart, PreservationNation Blog, posted June 22nd 2012 by David Garber

Apartments, Marina

Interesting apartments in the Marina district of San Francisco.

1490 Jefferson Street, Marina

This lovely apartment block is at 1490 Jefferson Street, Marina on the corner of Fillmore Street.

The decoration at the roofline directly above the entrance is gorgeous but perhaps not as good as that a lover level just above the doorway.

former San Francisco Stock Exchange, Exterior Sculptures

The final art works for the former Stock Exchange building (Miller & Pflueger, 1929-30), two large pylons place at either end of the Pine Street façade, were completed by Ralph Stackpole.

The gray Yosemite granite pylons, one depicting male figures, the other female figures, were unveiled on New Year's Eve 1932. Stackpole, Timothy Pfluger, and Angelo Rossi (Mayor of San Francisco) took part in the unveiling ceremony.

Reference:
Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger, by Therese Poletti, photography by Tom Paiva, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008

former San Francisco Stock Exchange, Interior

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

former San Francisco Stock Exchange, Sansome Street Entrance

We the members of the San Francisco Stock Exchange voted in 1927 to replace their existing building with a new one costing $½ million it was the design of James R Miller & Timothy Pflueger that was chosen. Miller & Pflueger had previously designed separate buildings for the exchange and a rival San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange but those had been prior to the new Art Deco style coming into vogue.

The building was constructed during 1929 and was nearing construction when the Stock Market Crash hit on October 29 leading to the building becoming known among traders as the Monument to the Crash.

This is the Sansome Street entrance to the building dominated by Ralph Stackpole's sculpture, The Progress of Man. There's more of Stackpole's sculptures associated with this building and a fabulous interior but I'll leave those to future posts to explore further.

Reference:
Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger, by Therese Poletti, photography by Tom Paiva, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008

2410 Chestnut Street, Marina

A great looking tiled Art Deco doorway at 2410 Chestnut Street in the San Francisco suburb of Marina.

cnr Franklin Street & Broadway, Pacific Heights

I con't know what is going on with this apartment building on the corner of Franklin Street & Broadway in Pacific Heights. I suspect something has been added to the roof of the original building but perhaps it was designed that way.

One thing for certain though, it has the most amazing decoration around the entrance.

2340 Pacific Avenue, Pacific Heights

2340 Pacific Avenue, Pacific Heights

3632 Fillmore, Marina

The apartment block is at 3632 Fillmore in the Marina area of San Francisco.

What do you think about the paint job?

I think it is a bit gaudy. Deco doesn't need to be this garish. A simple scheme using one or two colours at most is often enough to let Art Deco patterns come alive with light and shadow as the sun passes across their surface.

Fountain Coffee Shop Sign, San Francisco

255 & 265 10th Street, San Francisco

This is a pair of deco buildings dating from 1932 in San Francisco's Tenth Street.

The nearer, number 255, has been painted to bring out the Art Deco details and while I have to admit it was the colours that confirmed that this was the next stop on my walk, I think I prefer Number 265, the unpainted twin next door.

Reference:
Deco by the Bay: Art Deco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area ~ Michael F Crowe

2324 Chestnut St, Marina

2324 Chestnut St, Marina, now Crunch Fitness, was originally Victor's Market.

It was designed by Herman C Baumann and built in 1937.

The facade is amazing and I think they've done a reasonably good job putting in a modern awning that echos some of the original design feature but is not intended to look original.

Reference:
Deco by the Bay: Art Deco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area ~ Michael F Crowe

Roosevelt Middle School, San Francisco

In 1928 San Francisco architects, Miller and Pflueger, won the bid to bid a new building for the Roosevelt Junior High School.

They choose to build the school using brick, a rare choice after the 1906 earthquake, and were probably influenced by the Dutch Expressionist buildings and the Dutch Pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition.

The building opened in August 1930 and as the Roosevelt Middle School is still used for education today.

References:
Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger, Therese Poletti

2301 Chestnut St, Marina

2301 Chestnut St is on the wrong side of the street as far as I am concerned. While the beautiful deco buildings on the other side were bathed in sunlight, this side was in shadow. Worse, to take a picture, I was looking directly into the sun.

It is a nice building, dating from 1931 by Alex Stern, and luckily it is on a corner so I was able to grab this shot of the Art Deco details.

Otherwise I would have had to make do with something like this.

Reference:
Deco by the Bay: Art Deco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area ~ Michael F Crowe

Bay Bridge, San Francisco

When it was built in 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was something of a design marvel.

To span the gap between San Francisco and Oakland two separate spans connecting to Yerba Bueno Island (YBI) were required.

The West Span in the deep waters of San Francisco as suspension bridge was needed, in fact two suspension bridges. That's one of them in my photo.

The East Span required a truss-cantilever design to cover the shallow mudflats closer to Oakland.

Then as if that wasn't enough, there needed to ba a tunnel, a 76ft wide tunnel, on YBI to connect the two spans.

I think that qualifies as a design marvel.

Reference:
Bay Bridge History, The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge website

99 S Van Ness, San Francisco

This huge public storage facility is at the intersection of South Van Ness Avenue and 12th Street, San Francisco.

The building dates from 1935 and besides some wonderful Art Deco decoration on towers at each end and at the obtuse corner where the roads meet, it also has a lighthouse or lookout tower.

Reference:
Deco by the Bay: Art Deco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area ~ Michael F Crowe

1600 Beach St, Marina

Marina is a San Francisco suburb briming with Art Deco apartments and 1600 Beach is a typical example.

Decoration is typically limited to the roofline above the window bays and around the main entrance. Sometimes there is decoaration below each window but not in this case.

The decoration at the roofline of 1600 Beach is a great example of an Art Deco 'frozen fountain' which always reminds me of stylished tree ferns.

The same pattern has been placed above the entrance as the centrepiece of the decoration at ground level which includes a panel of chevrons, stylised flowers and stepped supports.

The doors is set back in a tiled entrance. Deco patterns have been included in the metalwork of the doorway which also has 1600, the number of the flats, in the centre of the main door.