He doesn't say much that hasn't already been discussed here.
S.F.'s restored de Young building stunning at street level
John King, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, December 27, 2007
As long as you don't look up, the restoration of San Francisco's de Young Building is the architectural feel-good story of the year.
Eleven stories of ruddy sandstone and brick command the corner of Kearny and Market streets every bit as robustly as they did in 1890, when the building that then housed The Chronicle opened as the tallest tower on the West Coast. You'd never guess that for 40 years the walls were hidden behind drab metal panels with a pseudo-modern look.
Unfortunately, the story doesn't end with a dowager's face-lift. To finance the rebirth, city officials let the developer put a tower in back. And that addition is so uninspired it almost undoes the good work below.
What's been salvaged is such a treasure that the trade-off is justified. But it's a close call.
The masonry facade is virtually all that's left of the original, designed by Chicago firm Burnham and Root for Chronicle publisher M. H. de Young. The client wanted an edifice that would outshine his rivals; Burnham and Root delivered the goods with a fortress-like temple of commerce, the walls so hefty they seem as though they were carved from a cliff.
That air of brawny grandeur remains, even though the interior was gutted long ago and the facade was scarred by a skin of metal and glass tattooed into place in 1962, when the owner at the time tried to make it more attractive to potential tenants.
But now the red bricks conceal something much different from a newspaper plant: Behind and above them sit the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences, a 24-story stack of condominiums and time shares (sorry, "fractional ownerships") aimed at affluent people who want a downtown perch.
For the original building, Burnham and Root rolled out a design that looks more like their hometown than San Francisco. An enormous, intricately carved entry arch in the style of H.H. Richardson emerges from a sandstone base so thick the windowsills framing the residential entry are 30 inches deep. Above the base, paired stacks of windows march up to eighth-floor arches.
There's such depth, such force, that you can sense what a spell the building cast on opening day, when nothing nearby was even half as tall. This is how the heart of a city should be: powerful and poised, tactile and proud.
The addition, by contrast, is wrapped in thin panels of lightweight concrete, with a tan color to differentiate them from the brickwork below. The tower is set back a bit from Market - enough for a nifty residents-only terrace - and not at all along Kearny.
The only accents to the upper facade come from flat bands of metal at various setbacks. There also were to be sunshades and recessed windows that would add a bit of depth, but they disappeared from the design as preservation costs soared.
According to architect Charles Bloszies, the look of the addition comes in part from necessity - a heavier facade wouldn't work with the structural columns - but also from a desire to make the new tower keep a low profile.
"We want the new building to look like a building in the background," said Bloszies, who was assisted on the preservation work by another local firm, Page & Turnbull. "The idea was to do a quiet addition that was respectful to the original design, but also distinct."
That's about the best that can be said for the new piece: It's a pale shadow of the past. The real justification is economic. Developer Jim Hunter was allowed extra height and bulk in return for a seismic upgrade and full restoration of the original building's skin.
It's a dangerous sort of compromise, as we too plainly see. On the other hand, the top is so forgettable it blurs into the background. The real show is at sidewalk level - where the project is an absolute winner.
Most of the credit goes to Burnham and Root, but give credit as well to Bloszies and Page & Turnbull. This isn't just a case of uncovering an old beauty and dusting her off. The team seized a once-in-a-career opportunity to make things right on a historic corner of San Francisco across from Lotta's Fountain, where Union Square meets the Financial District.
Indeed, the caring attention to detail makes it easy to miss the extent to which the "historic" skin is vintage 2007.
Some of the repair work is obvious, such as new bricks patching ruptures where the supports for the metal skin had been hammered into place. But the shallow bay that extends up from the original arched entry was sheared off in 1962, so what we see is molded lightweight concrete.
As for the rusticated stonework along Market, only the upper portion is original; the sandstone from the sidewalk to a height of 12 feet was installed last year, cut from boulders found at the long-closed original quarry in Southern California.
In a perfect world, the addition would be a fitting sequel to the original - one more part of a collage that already included two extra floors on Market and a 16-story wing on Kearny from 1905 designed in part by local luminary Willis Polk.
Instead, we have an ordinary finale to an extraordinary tale. Enjoy what's been uncovered anyway. It's a long-lost treasure, and it looks almost as good as new.
The stunningly restored de Young building is topped off with a ordinary-looking new tower. Chronicle photo by Kurt Rogers
De Young building over the decades
1887 - Chronicle publisher Michael de Young hires the Chicago firm Burnham and Root to design a new home for the newspaper at Kearny and Market streets.
1890 - On June 22, The Chronicle devotes seven pages of the paper to a thorough examination of "the safest, strongest and in every way one of the finest office buildings in the world." Special detail is lavished on the four-story clock tower rising from the center of the building, "the only bronze one in the United States."
1905 - A raucous parade celebrating the re-election of Mayor Eugene Schmitz stops outside the paper, which had opposed him. Skyrockets are launched. The tower goes up in flames. De Young responds by adding two floors to the original building and a 16-story annex on Kearny Street. No clock tower, though.
1906 - The Chronicle building rides out the earthquake - until the interior of the top floor catches fire and the typesetting equipment stored there plunges to the ground. Much of the building follows. The annex, though, survives and opens the next spring.
1924 - Chronicle moves to its current home at Fifth and Mission streets, and its former headquarters becomes a conventional for-rent office building.
1962 - The stretch of Market Street has faded, and so has the building. To spiff things up and catch the eye of potential tenants, owner Home Mutual Savings & Loan shaves back the masonry details to create a canvas for a modern facade of aluminum, glass and porcelain panels.
2004 - New owner Jim Hunter receives city approvals to strip off the modern cladding and restore the facade to its original appearance. The plan includes a vertical addition and a conversion to residential use. Construction begins in 2005.
2007 - In November, residents move into the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences. A marketing brochure touts their new home as "a historic skyscraper reincarnated."