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.

2410 Chestnut Street, Marina

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

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.

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

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

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.

2124-2130 Chestnut St, Marina

2124-2130 Chestnut Street, Marina with its wonderful sunray facade.

According to Michael F Crowe in Deco by the Bay the shops were constructed in 1932 but the architect is unknown.

It is interesting that the shop closer to the camera has a semi-circular window above the main street level window while the other shop (Starbucks) has a series of three rectangular windows. I suspect the semi-circular window is original but without viewing an old photo or the original plans it is difficult to tell.

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

Beyond the Alley/GNC, Marina

Here are a couple of shops in an Art Deco building in Chestnut Street, Marina. No doubt the shopfronts have been modified since the 1930s so all the deco beauty is above the awnings.

Firstly there are three windows adhering to the Rule of Three despite the fact that one sits across the midpoint of both shops. Each window has a beautiful decorative metal grill.

Then above each of the three windows the decoration is then further split into three vertical columns. Again the Rule of Three comes into play.

The four gaps on the façade above the windows each have a rectangular Art Deco panel. Again we can see the Rule of Three as these panels a divided into three horizontal section.

1580 Beach Street, Marina

As part of its 2003 Historic Preservation Awards, the Art Deco Society of California includes this apartment building at 1580 Beach Street, Marina. Designed by R R Irvine, it was built around 1931 and in 2003, over seventy years later, it was still owned by the same family.

It is not difficult to see how the building was chosen for a preservation award. The floral panels at the roofline above the window bays are stunning.

The retro-fitted fire escape interferes with the decoration of the facade above the main entrance but no doubt it is a necessary precaution in the Bay Area.

I'm interested to know if the garage was pert of the original design or added at a later date. In other case it is well done in keeping with the style of the building.

I find the paintwork on the small metal balcony a little twee. I suppose it does allow the decoration to be seen more clearly but I would have prefered to see the metalwork all the same colour and probably the beige colour rather than the blue.

The entrance, on the other hand, with its combination of colour works for me and I think it would look even better when the flowers are in full bloom.

Reference:
Historical Preservation Award Winners - 2003, Art Deco Society of California

Shops, Marina

Chestnut St in Marina is awash with small commercial buildings in various Art Deco styles. This is one building with four shopfronts.

Presidio Theatre, Marina

The Presidio Theatre in Chestnut St, Marina in San Francisco is a great little Art Deco suburban theatre.

Dating from 1937, it was designed by John H Ahnden.

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

Marina Middle School, San Francisco

This is Marina Middle School on the corner of Fillmore and Chestnut Streets in San Francisco. It was constructed in 1936 and designed by George Kelham and William Day.

The main school building facing Fillmore St has the names of great men (and they are all men) of science and art. Comte, Raphael, Plato, Galileo, Edison, Homer, Wagner, Euclid, Watt, Emerson, Moses, Milton, Darwin, Newton, Pasteur and Dante. The rear of the building overlooking the schoolyard also bears names including Aristotle and Washington. I didn't list all the names on that side so I wonder if any women are recognised there.

The decoration along the roofline incorporates bear's heads into an Art Deco band. Elsewhere panel at street level include lion's and ram's heads.

At one end of the building there is a frieze of a male figure carrying a torch and at the other end a female figure with a book.

Reference: San Francisco & 20th Century Design Tour Book, organised by The 20th Century Society of the Carolina Mountains

San Francisco Optics, Marina

Another of the Art Deco shops in Chestnut St, Marina is San Francisco Optics.

This corner shop has square columns at street level with green and rust (dare I saw International Organge) coloured tiles however the main decoration is above the level of the shop windows.

Here there a series of three horizontal lines with the top one presenting as a continuous band interrupted at regualr intervals by detailed Art Deco panels. The lower two lines break at the corner of the building and for groupings of green wave motifs under each of the orange deco panels.

Jamba Juice & Chadwicks of London, Marina

Chestnut St in the Marina area of San Francisco has a lot of small shops built in the 1930s.

These shops exhibit many different aspects of Art Deco styling and in the space of a few blocks you can see how wide ranging the style can be.

This is a close-up of the Art Deco panel above Chadwicks of London and Jamba Juice.