THE MANY FACES OF

SAN FRANCISCO’S ARCHITECTURE

layout and photography by ANTHONY STIMOlA

written content by bRIAN AlTANO experimental type GR613academy of art university

© 2010

Wake up to a weeping dystopia of sycophantic hordes,

smiling at their own accord. To the armies sans command.

To a landscape of communities immersed in gluttonous

delight. We are but the structureless beams of buoyancy

dwelling in the spotlight of our precursors, sojourned

antecedents of calculated unbalance. Yet we beg to thrive

in the pulchritude of San Francisco’s vulnerable motley

of procurable paradise. We persist to best the apex of our

surroundings, as resplendent as one can breathe whilst

basking in the mesmeric wonder that this city can bestow.

Beauty prospers here, markedly when chagrined by its

manufactured spires of inspired defiance.

FOREWORD

Foot Bridge to Japan Tow

n

||

Intersection of Geary and W

ebster

||

4//25//2010

||

6.20 PM

Saint Patricks Church || 756 Mission Street || 4//19//2010 || 2.18 PM

CONTENTSCulture //5

Homes//14

Buildings //22

Bridges //31

//4

Sain

t Pat

rick

s C

hurc

h

||

756

Mis

sion

Str

eet

||

4/

/19/

/201

0

||

2.20

PM“Without culture, and the relative

freedom it implies, society, even

when perfect, is but a jungle.

This is why any authentic creation

is a gift to the future.”

//Albert Camus

YET AMIdST ITS dECAY, lIFE pERSISTS.

Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption || 1111 Gough Street || 4//25//2010 || 6.43 PM

“”

//10

Alcazar Theater || 660 Geary Street || 4//19//2010 || 1.15 PM

From a city built on the debris of collapse and restructure thrives a

framework of fabric, of plebeian ideology seething with life through

variegation. Some pray, others prey. Shrines soar as demons scatter

beneath. Multeity solicits deity. We live and wilt in fear of seismic

shake, and the deathly trembles of sporadic expiration. Yet we scream

defiance at the mere thought of what has collapsed our core before

us. We exude resilience; it’s the only fragmented facade of entity from

which we cull harmony. Churches spire over even the most dedicated

agnostics. Dimly lit corner emporiums blink with the congeniality of

the budding sin we sanguinely hand our eves to hope to salvage.

Together we stand, for something, for however long it lasts, before

it drags us all in to ruination, smiling at the synthesis we’ve so

haphazardly envisaged.

Peac

e Pa

goda

||

1737

Pos

t Str

eet

||

4/

/25/

/201

0

||

6.32

PM

Victoria H

ouse

||

102 Central A

venue

||

4//25//2010

||

7.40 PM

“There is a magic in that little

world, home; it is a mystic circle

that surrounds comforts and

virtues never known beyond its

hallowed limits.”

// Robert Southey

“”

lOST ARE THE SMATTERINgS OF COlOR HApHAzARdlY SlAppEd UpON THE ExTERIORS OF SAN FRANCISCO’S MOST ICONIC wHORES.

Victoria House || 1407 Page Street || 4//25//2010 || 7.47 PM

lOST ARE THE SMATTERINgS OF COlOR HApHAzARdlY SlAppEd UpON THE ExTERIORS OF SAN FRANCISCO’S MOST ICONIC wHORES.

Saint Francis Square Housing Co-op || Corner of Luguana Avenue and Geary Boulevard || 4//25//2010 || 6.59 PM

//20

Apartm

ent Building

||

310 B

ryant Street

||

4//24//2010

||

5.40 PM

The

Hya

tt R

egen

cy H

otel

||

5 E

mba

rcad

ero

Cen

ter

||

4/

/25/

/201

0

||

3.45

PM“The loftier the building, the

deeper must the foundation

be laid.”

// Thomas Kempis

Dow

ntown O

ffice Building

||

770 M

arket Street

||

4//19//2010

||

1.21 PM

//24

Restless and emaciated, jaded and dystopic; the Tenderloin’s sprawling

framework is as calculated as its inhabitants. A collective of once

promising plymouths of expectancy stand withered and rotting above

a shuffled pack of denizens who opt to flicker in its dusk. Lost are the

smatterings of color haphazardly slapped upon the exteriors of San

Francisco’s most iconic whores. Painted ladies in the fog, dipping in

and out of communal relevance. The Tanners would never drag their

bubbled plights into this hood. No, this is where dreams go to starve,

where progress shifts to madness as governmental beacons tower over

in triumphant disregard. Yet amidst its decay, life persists. Structures

of rubble and rock twist and shed amongst tourists and addicts who

leer towards their apex with the same glimmer of wilted promise. Man

is not inspired by his environment as he is humbled by its ability to

belittle him, and in a sea of disparity, he finds hope in the pillars that

look down upon him, begging to be conquered.

Apartment Building || Geary Boulevard || 4//25//2010 || 6.59 PM

Cluster of Buildings Downtown || Post Street Between Montgomery Street and Kearny Street || 4//25//2010 || 2.50 PM

FROM A CITY bUIlT ON THE dEbRIS OF COllApSE ANd RESTRUCTURE THRIvES A FRAMEwORk...

“

”

”

One R

incon Hill

||

425 1st Street

||

4//25//2010

||

5.33 P

M

//30

The

Gol

den

Gat

e B

ridg

e N

orth

Tow

er

||

U

S R

oute

101

/Cal

ifor

nia

Stat

e R

oute

1

||

3/

/26/

/201

0

||

1.30

PM

“The hardest thing in life is to

know which bridge to cross and

which to burn.”

// David Russell

//24

The Trans Bay Bridge || 452 Beale Street || 4//24//2010 || 5.52 PM

The Trans Bay Bridge || 452 Beale Street || 4//24//2010 || 5.48 PM

“”

MAN IS NOT INSpIREd bY HIS ENvIRONMENT AS HE IS HUMblEd bY

ITS AbIlITY TO bElITTlE HIM, ANd IN A SEA OF

dISpARITY, HE FINdS HOpE IN THE pIllARS

THAT lOOk dOwN UpON HIM, bEggINg

TO bE CONqUEREd

The

Gol

den

Gat

e B

ridg

e N

orth

Tow

er

||

U

S R

oute

101

/Cal

ifor

nia

Stat

e R

oute

1

||

3/

/26/

/201

0

||

1.36

PM

Enveloped in fog, swaying in wind and decomposing at the seams,

San Francisco’s idyllic steel gangplanks reach out to diametric

worlds. The Golden Gate beckons Sausalito’s lavish drunks and wine

country’s diluted taste for decadence. The Bay Bridge extends to

Oakland’s crime-riddled devastation like a hand filled with assurance

and nourishment. The latter of the two prohibits the populace from

traversing it, while the former has historically inspired them to jaunt

towards its alluring median and leap into the hazy abyss beneath,

never to live again. The Gate, an apricot tinted suicide string, stitched

between two cities like a dazzlingly virulent tight rope act. The Bay,

a sprawling gray and decrepit behemoth huddled between microcosms

of chaos. Atlas’s arms extended in grotesque harmony, sweat, scars

and slashes transparent to all.