Photo and rendering courtesy of the architect.1 Kearny Street, San Francisco
Office of Charles F. Bloszies, AIA
The 1902 Mutual Savings Bank Building, by William Curlett, is one of the few survivors of the devastating fire that followed the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. This French Renaissance Revival building was paired in 1964 with an addition by Clark & Beuttler in association with Charles Moore. Moore’s abstract interpretation of the original building’s massing reflected the struggle of early post-Modernism to discover an appropriate way to extend an historic building form. Today, Moore’s structure, like Curlett’s, is an historically protected building.
An approved addition by Charles F. Bloszies, flanking the original building, adopts a different strategy for contextual response. A contemporary language of glass and steel reflects both the pattern and the delicacy of the original façade, forming a visual continuity while recognizing the progress of construction technology.
At press time, it was unclear whether Bloszies’s proposal to carry the new pattern of glazing into the now largely opaque shaft of the Moore addition would qualify for federal historic preservation tax credits. Whatever the outcome, this trio should form an instructive ensemble for students of the changing process of historical review—itself an historical phenomenon.
Originally published 2nd quarter 2007 in arcCA 07.2, “Design Review.”
