The San Francisco Civic Center

A History of the Design, Controversies, and Realization of a City Beautiful Masterpiece

James Haas

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781948908153
• eBook ISBN: 9781948908146
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Architecture General
• Index: Politics & International Relations

San Francisco is known and loved around the world for its iconic man-made structures, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, and Transamerica Pyramid. Yet its Civic Center, with the grandest collection of monumental municipal buildings in the United States, is often overlooked, drawing less global and local interest, despite its being an urban planning marvel featuring thirteen government office and cultural buildings.

In The San Francisco Civic Center, James Haas tells the complete story of San Francisco's Civic Center and how it became one of the most complete developments envisioned by any American city. Originally planned and designed by John Galen Howard in 1912, the San Francisco Civic Center is considered in both design and materials one of the finest achievements of the American reformist City Beautiful movement, an urban design movement that began more than a century ago.

Haas meticulously unravels the Civic Center's story of perseverance and dysfunction, providing an understanding and appreciation of this local and national treasure. He discusses why the Civic Center was built, how it became central to the urban planning initiatives of San Francisco in the early twentieth century, and how the site held onto its founders' vision despite heated public debates about its function and achievement. He also delves into the vision for the future and related national trends in city planning and the architectural and art movements that influenced those trends.

Riddled with inspiration and leadership as well as controversy, The San Francisco Civic Center, much like the complex itself, is a stunning manifestation of the confident spirit of one of America's most dynamic and creative cities.
 

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The American Civic Center: Origin and History
• 2. Victorian City Hall and Early City Planning in San Francisco
• 3. California and the Chicago Exposition: The City Beautiful Comes to San Francisco
• 4. The 1906 Earthquake’s Aftermath: Catastrophe, Disarray, and Indecision
• 5. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the Creation of San Francisco’s Civic Center
• 6. Breaking Ground on the Civic Center
• 7. 1920s and 30s: Mayor Rolph Forges Ahead
• 8. Between the Wars: Veterans and the Temple of Music
• 9. Postwar and Modernism
• 10. Late-Century Expansion: Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall and a New Library
• 11. Recent Decades and the Present Day: Building Toward Civic Center’s Centennial
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author