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
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That first picture.... Swoon! so glamourous!
ReplyDeleteYou know you are somewhere special when you see a foyer like that.
DeleteI was in this gorgeous building last September. It was the best space I've ever been in.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos!! I presume Diego Rivera was already designing his murals in that Deco style, before the Stock Exchange commissioned him (as in the bottom photo). But I wonder who suggested the content of the design.
ReplyDeleteI would say so Helen. Rivera was in Spain and France in the early part of the 20th Century, returning to Mexico in the early 1920s so he would have been exposed to and immersed in the modern art movements that were developing in Europe at that time, including Art Deco.
DeleteI've just re-read the section about the mural in Therese Poletti's book 'Art Deco San Francisco - The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger' and it gives some insight into how the mural design came about.
Firstly Ralph Stackpole who worked on sculptures for the Stock Exchange building had studied with Rivera in Paris and visited with him Mexico in 1926. Stackpole then introduced the William Gerstle, president of the San Francisco Art Association to Rivera's art and together these two men suggested Pflueger use Rivera to do the mural at the Stock Exchange.
When Rivera and his wife, Freda Kahlo, arrived in San Francisco they were feted at a "seemingly endless stream of luncheons, dinners, lectures, art exhibitions, and even the Sanford-Cal football game, Rivera took notes on his observations of California for the mural."
He met champion tennis player Helen Willis Moody who became the inspiration for the focal point of the mural, the large female figure. In one had she holds the soil and in the other fruits harvested from the land. Elsewhere the mural shows symbols of emerging industries in California such as aerospace and petroleum.
According to Poletti, Wills Moody wrote that the the committee of the Stock Exchange didn't want any living person in the mural. Rivera disguised her features and darkened her hair colour, still some living people did make it into the finished mural including Ralph Stackpole's son, Peter, holding an aeroplane.