San Francisco Celebrates with Month-Long Architecture + the City Festival · Sep 8, 10:50 AM
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has officially proclaimed September “Architecture and the City” month!
The fifth annual, month-long Architecture + the City Festival, celebrates design and San Francisco’s built environment with tours, films, exhibitions, lectures, and green programming throughout September. Last year’s festival, also organized by the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter and the Center for Architecture + Design, attracted more than 20,000 attendees. Amongst the highlights for the 2008 program are the Home Tours weekend from September 13-14, the Architectural Gems bike tour on September 20, and the Golden Gate Bridge Tour on September 28.
Our own celebration of classic San Francisco architecture has arrived just in time for this year’s festival:
“Perhaps the finest architect San Francisco has ever produced.”–John King, San Francisco Chronicle
The Castro Theatre, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Headquarters, 450 Sutter Medico-Dental Building–these masterpieces of San Francisco’s Art Deco heritage are the work of one man: Timothy Pflueger. An immigrant’s son with only a high-school education, Pflueger began practicing architecture after San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake. While his contemporaries looked to Beaux-Arts traditions to rebuild the city, he brought exotic Mayan, Asian, and Egyptian forms to buildings ranging from simple cocktail lounges to the city’s first skyscrapers. Pflueger was one of the city’s most prolific architects during his 40-year career. He designed two major downtown skyscrapers, two stock exchanges, several neighborhood theaters, movie palaces for four smaller cities (including the beloved Paramount in Oakland), some of the city’s biggest schools, and at least 50 homes. His works include the San Francisco Stock Exchange, the ever-popular Top of the Mark, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco World’s Fair. It is a testament to his talent that many of his buildings still stand and many have been named landmarks.
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Weiss/Manfredi event at the National Building Museum on Monday, September 15th AT HOME WITH THE AMBASSADOR OF HANDMADE!