“We are living in an age of clear and well diversified objectives, and architecture must meet these objectives. We are now living in a mechanical, rational, abstractly imaginative age and our architecture should bear the imprint of the age.”
Thus proclaimed the 1930 proposal for “A Civic Center for the City of Richmond,” by the Architectural Group for Industry and Commerce (AGIC), a collaboration of planner Carol Aronovici and architects Richard Neutra and R.M. Schindler (left, top). Interrupted by the Great Depression and World War II, the development of the Civic Center did not proceed until 1945, with a new design (left, bottom), by Timothy Pflueger, renowned architect of Oakland’s Paramount Theater (1931) and San Francisco’s Castro Theater (1921), Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Building (1925), and Pacific Stock Exchange (1928). The ensemble of City Hall, Hall of Justice, Auditorium/Art Center, and Public Library was completed in 1951 under the direction of Plueger’s younger brother, Milton (Timothy Pflueger had died in 1946), with landscape architects H. Leland Vaughan and Adele W. Vaughan.
The first phase of a comprehensive revitalization of the Civic Center, under a master plan developed by Perkins + Will, has recently been completed by Nadel Architects with site design by WRT. The City Hall and former Hall of Justice, now known as 440 Civic Center Plaza, achieved LEED™ Gold certification. The Civic Center Fine Arts Collection, implemented under Richmond’s Percent for Art Ordinance, comprises eight specially commissioned, site-specific works by Archie Held, Gordon Heuther, Daniel Galvez, John Wehrle, and Marion Coleman, and fifty-six additional works by Bay Area artists.
Author Tim Culvahouse, FAIA, is editor of arcCA.
Originally published 4th quarter 2009 in arcCA 10.1, “Parametrics and IPD.”
