• 3255 Pacific Ave. house
• Arthur Conan Doyle House
• First Church of Christ, Scientist
• Golden Gate Valley Branch Library
• Live Worms Gallery (Orig. Mel Figone Hardware)
• 36 Presidio Ter. house
• Former Standard Oil Building
• Sharon Building
• 864 Francisco St. house
• (Second) James L. Flood Mansion
• Abbreviations

This steep block is an architectural treasure trove. Nowhere else in the city is there such a harmonious stand of houses from what has been termed the First Bay Tradition, a west coast "Shingle style" that mixes elegance of detail with informality in materials and form--don't miss the back side for real vernacular informality. The designers' names are a roster of the turn-of-the-century group of eastern immigrants who brought forth a first flowering of regional design (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 97-98; Wiley 2000: 278-79).

Willis Polk allegedly remodeled this house, which was briefly the home of Arthur Conan Doyle. (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 87).

One of the Bay Area's greatest architectural monuments, this church is Maybeck's masterpiece, showing his ability to combine such unrelated styles as Gothic and Oriental with an admixture of Romanesque and Craftsman. The interior illustrates his genius for fusing structure and ornament. All this with an imaginative use of such new materials as concrete, cement asbestos board, and industrial sash. Those interested in seeing the interior should call the church office for the hours of public tours (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 275).

Maybeck's masterwork and one of this country's most remarkable buildings. An amalgam of styles but a copy of none, the design demonstrates his genius for fusing structure with ornament as well as for making the most of a restricted piece of property. The church is open to the public after services on Wednesday night and Sunday morning. The interior is as magical at night as by daylight (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 213).

Maybeck, in KPFA tape, reel 3, described his composing ("modeling") the design for the First Church of Christ Scientist in Berkeley (1910), "just as if I was an old Greek," no doubt referring to Viollet's portrayal of how ancient Greek temples were formed (Longstreth 1998: 397).

According to Maybeck himself, KPFA tape, reel 3, large charcoal studies were made for the First Church of Christ Scientist. While documentation has yet to be found, it is likely that Maybeck used this method earlier as well. When working in the office, Edward Hussey saved a number of these studies, which were normally discarded as a project was further developed, and they are now in College of Environmental Design (CED) Docs. The importance Maybeck placed on the conceptual process is noted in Arnold, "Maybeck," p.7 (Longstreth 1998: 399 n. 37).

Jordy, American Buildings, p. 302, notes the similarity between such drawings by Viollet and the free standing brackets that front the south elevation of Maybeck's First Church of Christ Scientist, but does not suggest the irony implicit in the treatment. Viollet's method of depicting structural assemblies was widely used during the second half of the nineteenth century, so that if it was a source of inspiration for Maybeck, he may not have been thinking of Viollet alone. Additional material on the building is contained in Cardwell, Maybeck, pp. 62-64 (Longstreth 1998: 399 n. 44).

In 1910, when Maybeck was almost 50, five women of the congregation of the First Church of Christ, Scientist came one day to talk to him. They wanted, he recalled, "a church that would look like a church" and built of materials "that are what they claim to be, not imitations." Maybeck, whose religious feeling embraced everything, asked about their religion. The sincerity with which they spoke reminded him of the faith of the men who had built the early Romanesque churches in the south of France.

Maybeck began to wonder how he could "put himself in the boots of a fellow in the twelfth century," as he described it. He was certain of one thing: the man of the Middle Ages would use "the most modern materials he could lay his hands on," and would combine them in such a way as to express the spirit of his faith.

After Maybeck had found what he wanted to say, he looked among the common materials--the natural ones and the fabricated ones. From industry he took asbestos panels and factory sash; cement and local redwood completed his list for the structure. He cast concrete in hexagonal columns for the loggia to the left of the portico; against these he played rough redwood columns. To the right was a row of free standing square fluted columns also of cast concrete; on top of each was a single complex trellis structure, which brought wisteria vines into the architectural composition. The Romanesque capitals were in the spirit of those in Ste. Madeleine's at Vezelay. Many castings were made before Maybeck was satisfied. "he had great knowledge of what he wanted," according to Anthony Tovani, who made the castings. The capitals were one of the loveliest passages in Maybeck's work--the figures of carollers in high relief set a joyous theme which ruled the spirit of the entire church.

Asbestos panels formed a surfacing material for exterior walls; they were fastened to the frame in a rhythm of diamond-shaped pieces of red asbestos. Maybeck redivided the vertical divisions of the factory sash to give them the character of a Japanese screen, and inserted handmade glass of warm flesh tones.

Without towers or spires, he led the eye up, from the gently pitched roof covering the portico, from one hovering roof to a higher one, and finally to a modest cupola. It was a broad and friendly exterior, whose only thin verticals were the cast concrete tracery of the two great windows, and the delicate lines of the factory sash.

The directness with which Maybeck spanned the Greek cross plan was unexpected for one who loved height. Hinged trusses cut diagonally across the nave; the springings were four decorated concrete columns. The vertical members between the upper and lower chord were pierced with Gothic tracery outlined in gold.

Byzantine-inspired ornament on the capitals was picked out in gold, blue and red; designs were stencilled on rough-sawn redwood brackets in colors so subdued that color and texture were fused. There were endless lovely small details--the floral designs inscribed in the two cast concrete readers' stands; the hanging steel lights bowls--pierced with a pattern of quatrefoils--above the pews; the cross-form lights of 4 by 4-inch redwood in the Fireplace Room; the multiplication of members in the open truss of the Fireplace Room, originally the Sunday School.

Maybeck moved with confidence from Renaissance plan to flamboyant Gothic tracery, from Romanesque columns to Japanese timber work, to Byzantine decoration. No one has ever carried the burden of the past more weightlessly (McCoy 1975: 24).

Stenciling in red, green, blue, and gold unites unfinished concrete with rough wood and metal ties, while identifying the architect by an emblematic "A."

It is possible that if the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Berkeley, had been destroyed by fire, as so many of Maybeck's works have been, he never would have received the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects. No other building demonstrates so completely his imaginative architectural genius. His contributions to domestic design are outstanding and his efforts in architectural education noteworthy; but it is the Christian Science church, with its masterly handling of space, structure, color and light, that wins immediate admiration from lay and professional viewers. The church, design in 1910 when Maybeck was forty-eight years old, is the visible statement of his design philosophy at its most fruitful stage.(Cardwell 1977: 118-19)

Maybeck's own story of how he was selected as the architect for the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley, reveals many aspects of his attitude as a designer. He related that one day a group of women called on him in his office in San Francisco and stated that they would like to have him design their church. They were familiar with his houses in Berkeley and had decided that he could design the church they were hoping to build. They wanted a simple building, one in keeping with their faith. Maybeck said that he could design such a building and that it would be "the same on the inside as the outside, without sham or hypocrisy," but that he thought they would not like it. (Note 6:B.R.Maybeck MSS, "Correspondence," C.E.D. Docs.) The ladies protested saying that was just the kind of building they wanted. But Maybeck put them off. Perhaps his experiences with the earlier Hamilton Church and the Unitarian Church had not been to his liking in either design or client relationship. He told them that he would want to use rough materials and concrete as it came from the forms and that they should reconsider.

Two weeks later the same ladies again called on Maybeck. They stated flatly that they had selected him as their architect. (Note 7: Conversations between the author and Maybeck. The "History of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley, California" (May 1933), states: "The Plans Committee, after consulting twelve architects, unanimously recommended architect and engineer, Mr. Bernard Maybeck of the firm Maybeck and White. The Board approved their action and authorized the procuring of sketches September 27, 1909.") They had even sought spiritual guidance, they added, and were now firmly convinced that he was the only designer they wanted. Maybeck was surprised that they had returned after he had discouraged them, but he was impressed by the sincerity of their feeling and consequently consented to take their commission. He said he felt that he had been hired by a group of people as sincere as he believed people were in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He therefore tried to imagine himself as a twelfth century designer, imbued with this same sincerity, and he set to work designing as such an individual would but with machine-made two-by-fours and modern technology. It was this quality that Frank Morton Todd was referring to when he said of Maybeck: "In feeling and understanding he steps back twenty centuries as easily as you or I would cross a room." (Note 8: Bernard R. Maybeck, The Palace of Fine Arts and Lagoon, p. vii. Introduction by Frank Morton Todd.)

The church Board of Directors had obtained a corner lot south of the University campus in the heart of an established residential section of the city. It had a slight slope on the hundred foot frontage on Dwight Way, but the site was level in the hundred and fifty foot depth along Bowditch Street. The program called for a church building that could seat seven hundred people, a Sunday school that could be used in conjunction with the church proper, and various service elements. To meet these requirements, Maybeck developed a plan that covered most of the restricted area on which he had to build. He located the Sunday school unit to the front of the property and kept the building as close to the street lot lines as feasible in order to gain some isolation from neighboring properties.

A delightful cross-play of axially-centered entrances, a short, major one from Dwight Way to the church and a long, minor one from Bowditch Street to the Sunday school, foreshadows the intricate volume organization within the building. The church is entered from the street through a high-gabled portico. A pair of plain doors opens into a skylighted and low-ceilinged narthex which serves both the church and Sunday school. Double doors lead to the body of the church proper. The floor plan of the room is square, based on a module of ten feet ten inches in each direction. The roof plan is a Greek cross in form with low-pitched gable roofs inscribed in the square of the plan. An intermediate clerestory level lies between the square and the Greek cross. Its walls form bracing panels for the pairs of diagonally-placed Pratt trusses over the central crossing which is forty feet square. A hollow reinforced concrete pier at each corner of the crossing supports the trusses and serves as ductwork for the heating and ventilating system. Forced warm air rising in the piers is distributed by draft diverters through the trusswork of the ceiling. Foul air is taken in at the base of the piers and exhausted through the roof. The six-foot deep panel trusses are built from two-by-six and two-by-twelve stock lumber. Maybeck was aided in their design by his old friend Herman Kower, who had worked with him on the Hearst buildings. Each pair of trusses follows the slope of the valleys of the crossed gable roof until they intersect their transverse number at the center and continue on down to the pier opposite. The entire roof framing is exposed, including the beams, purlins, and sheathing, and rich patterns of structural members thus decorate the ceiling. The walls of the clerestory are of ten-inch board-on-board finish, and the lower exterior walls are a post and beam system framing a glass wall of steel sash.

In 1921, writing of the church, Maybeck said, "Physically the [building] committee wanted color, garden, etc., and they wanted nothing sham. We sensed a need for permanence in religious monument rather as a symbol; therefore, the floor was concrete and on the ground, and the walls are concrete to the seat of the trusses." (Note 9: B.R.Maybeck MSS, "First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley," C.E.D. Docs.)

Skylights, translucent windows, and reflections on glass modulate the light in the entrance passageway. The use of industrial steel sash reveals Maybeck's genius and willingness to use modern materials even going contrary to the manufacturer's own opinion of the suitability of the material.

There is much symbolism in all of Maybeck's work. From the obvious device of the dragon mark of his father's craft to the choice of materials, symbolism of some form exists in most of his work. (Note 10: The dragon device was used in Wyntoon, the Faculty Club, Outdoor Art Club, Flagg studio, Owens house, Tufts house (San Rafael), Kennedy studio, and the Chamberlain studio among others.) In the Christian Science church there is a symbolic coordination of ornament and structure. The tracery in the roof truss panels follows the direction of the diagonal tension rods. Metal tie plates are accented with stenciled designs, and hidden structural elements are indicated by ornament on the surface. The gilt of the truss tracery and small accents of primary reds and blues are conscious attempts to suggest the inheritance of early Christian architecture.

The exterior of the church is surfaced with the most common materials. Sheets of cement asbestos board of a light gray color are applied to most of the upper exterior walls. They are fastened with screws placed in small diamond-shaped pieces of the same material, in brick red. The factory steel sash that forms most of the lower wall has been enriched by hammered glass set with leadings bisecting vertically each unit of the standard light. The cast concrete elements are molded in forms derived from, but not copies of, Romanesque details. The roof, now partially covered with Spanish tiles, was originally a standing seam roof of tin clad sheet iron. Trim, trellises, and corbels are of natural redwood darkened with age, and the structural frame and interior boards are rough-sawn Douglas fir. The materials testify to Maybeck's adaptability to the conditions of building in an industrialized economy.

Only the genius and perseverance of the architect made the materials usually associated with factories and utilitarian building appropriate and in harmony with the edifice. In reply to Maybeck's first inquiry as to the cost of providing stock steel factory sash for the church windows, the company's representative wrote that he did not think the product was appropriate for church construction. Maybeck insisted that he knew what he was doing and reiterated his request for a quotation. The bid was finally received and, to Maybeck's great pleasure, was considerably lower than that for any alternative units he might have chosen. The supplier, however, was still dubious and indicated this on the bid form by putting the word "church" in quotation marks. (Note 11: B.R.Maybeck MSS, "First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley," C.E.D. Docs.

Maybeck had similar difficulties with the manufacturers of the asbestos panels used to clad the exterior. They were normally applied to roofs or used for insulation and industrial packing, and the company had difficulty in quoting a correct figure until the architect pointed out to them a number of omissions and supplied a detailed list of every piece of asbestos board to be used on the buildings. Such trials, of course, were only the beginning of difficulties to be overcome when he selected materials or methods of construction which differed from traditional practices. Both workmen and clients (represented by a consulting engineer of the Church Board) had to be educated, convinced, or cajoled into accepting his unorthodox treatments.

All fittings, exterior and interior, were executed to designs done by Maybeck. They vary from strap iron exterior lanterns and handsome steeled brass interior luminaires to awkward chandeliers of redwood stick and bare bulbs used in the Sunday school. The pews of fumed, waxed oak and the red plush cushions and screens used behind the Reader stands are of Maybeck's design and selection. These lecterns of cast concrete typified Maybeck's ability to make a creative design out of an adverse circumstance. It was cast in a mold lined with paper to assure smoothness. The paper wrinkled in the process of pouring, and Maybeck utilized the creases formed in the resulting block as the basis of floral pattern. His designing did not stop with the furnishings of the church. He also provided a landscape plan. Some of the wisteria vines now on the church are from the original planting. However, the carmine bouganvillea, pink geranium, blue hydrangea, and lavendar verbena indicated on his drawings are no longer in evidence. (Note 12: The furnishings and garden were finished in 1912. After completion, the Board of Directors always sought Maybeck's approval of any change proposed for the church or gardens.)

Much has been made of Maybeck's use in the church of sliding doors to accommodate overflow crowds, of the industrial steel sash in the exterior curtain walls, and of its asbestos siding. But these features are not the true measure of his architectural accomplishment. It was his mastery of the architectural elements of light, space, proportion, and scale that created a building of lasting significance. His church makes man its measure and reflects the humanistic qualities of the religion it shelters. Maybeck felt that members of the congregation "were in direct touch with an omniscient power in everything they did"--perhaps through a kind of partnership. He said:

We tried to fit the clothes to the man. The form of the building was such that the seating was arranged so that everyone, as far as possible, could see the one who rises to give his experience, which seems to us a vital part of their church work...Summing it up, to build a church edifice can be done by being strictly honest, i.e., make no forms other than those needed for the construction and furnishings, make no ornaments and no color, except those needed and of the form suggested by the need. Avoid all hiding of unpleasant forms. Do not borrow from history, but use form and color as you do words and music. (Note 13: B. R. Maybeck MSS, "Correspondence," C.E.D. Docs.)

Maybeck's color scheme for the church has been well preserved. Starting with the natural wood brown of the truss members and tin gray of the natural concrete piers, the gray, pink, and blue of the roof sheathing boards and walls are accented by gilt on the tracery and by rich red, blue, black, and green in the depths of modeled ornament and flat stencil work. At one time the organ loft was screened by a blue net fabric on which the women of the congregation fashioned gilt stars. Maybeck planned this activity to make them feel that they had actively contributed to the building of the church. The organ loft and its curtain of stars were lit by clerestory windows glazed with art glass.

Maybeck also employed both natural and artificial light to enrich the structure. Windows in front of the organ screen were to be glazed with yellow, amber, and red and those behind with green, purple, and ultramarine blue. Maybeck simplified his original color scheme and used warm pinks in the glass in front and blues in the window at the rear of the screen. Great care went into the selection of the glass to be used in the sash which forms a continuous glazed wall around the perimeter of the church room. His choice was a glass imported from Belgium that had a shimmering, translucent quality. For artificial lighting he chose prismatic glass reflector units and designed housings to enclose them. In addition to the down lights for the pews and the general illumination of the large hanging fixtures which cast their glow towards the ceilings, concealed lights of red and blue accent various portions of the structure.

Throughout the construction phase of his designs, Maybeck was always at work selecting the proper material at hand. His activity has led to stories that each of his designs was handmade, created on the site in a sort of medieval masterbuilder tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth. His presence on the site was to assure the most effective use of the material on hand. Conceptually his designs were complete before any work was undertaken. Each board and its size, each material and its finish, and even the color of all or part of each is shown on the drawings.

During the busiest years of his practice Maybeck employed the device of letting bids for construction by segregated contracts. He thus became acquainted with a number of specialty contractors who knew the kind of work he expected. Many of those who participated in the building of the Christian Science church were men with whom Maybeck had had repeated building experience, so he was confident of their abilities. William Boldt was the general carpentry contractor, Christian Schneckenburger the painting contractor, and Hoff and Hoff of San Francisco the architectural modelers. (Note 14: B.R.Maybeck MSS, "First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley," C.E.D. Docs.) Maybeck's function as a semi-general contractor gave him a direct control which he used to full advantage. His unbelievable energy and enthusiasm turned the tide against all obstacles. His lack of preconceived architectural solutions to the problems he faced coupled with his complete domination of every detail of the basic structure, mechanical systems, and furnishings of the church helped create a building noteworthy in the history of American architecture (Cardwell 1977: 122-30).

The Christian Science church brought no immediate fame to Maybeck. Indeed, its exterior appearance, following all the changes of its interior form, plus the strange "wellheads" set diagonally over the exposed portions of the roof trusses and foul-air vents, produced a less ordered and familiar profile than the community expected in ecclesiastical architecture. It took the aging of several years and the maturing of the heavy planting of wisteria along the trellises before the building fit comfortably into the Berkeley landscape (Cardwell 1977: 132).

His preference for the simple life had kept him from pressing the advantages of publicity he had gained while at the University. And when the work slowed in his office upon completion of the drawings of the Christian Science Church, he tried once again to expand his practice by entering competitions (Cardwell 1977: 135).

The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Berkeley, constructed in 1910, and the Palace of Fine Arts, designed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, are the conerstones of Maybeck's fame, praised in every book that mentions his architecture. The latter work had great public exposure and was an immediate popular success; the former had limited exposure and only gradually became known to the national and international architectural audience. By now it is acknowledged as Maybeck's masterpiece.

Even more complex in its imagery than Maybeck's other works, the First Church of Christ, Scientist (plate 73), beggars description and must be seen to be comprehended. Although it was not Maybeck's first church commission, his two earlier designs (one of which went no further than sketches) were for smaller buildings, and they gave no inkling of what he would do here. At first he resisted the commission, doing his best to put the members of the church's building committee on their guard by implying that they would not like the building he had in mind. He told them, for example, that he would use unfinished concrete and would make the building "the same on the inside as the outside, without sham or hypocrisy."¹ His warnings seemed only to confirm the committee members in their resolve. Finally convinced of their faith and sincerity, Maybeck sought to invigorate the design process with the spirit of twelfth century.

A letter of instruction from the committee to Maybeck expresses concerns that matched his own; the letter was no doubt an attempt to summarize what both sides had already agreed to. The church, it stated, should manifest "unity, harmony, beauty, light and peace."² It was to be a progressive structure designed to express the special character of the congregation and to match its surroundings. "Homelikeness, exemplified in a surrounding garden," was called for. "It should express reverence ... sincerity and honesty exemplified in the use of genuine construction and materials which are what they claim to be and are not imitations. It should express welcome to all exemplified in its entrance ... comfort, quietness, and peace ... in the plan of seating and the kind of seats." In practical terms, the program called for a church that could seat seven hundred people, a Sunday school that could also be used for church social functions, and service spaces.

The structure that resulted was like no church ever built in the Bay Area, or in the state, or even in the nation. Nor did it look like the twelfth-century churches Maybeck so revered, or like H. H. Richardson's Trinity Church in Boston, which he said was his favorite church in America. Instead it fused Gothic elements with Byzantine massing and Mediterranean pergolas to produce a building so frankly eclectic that only a wizard like Maybeck could have kept it from being visually chaotic.

The site slopes gently toward the corner on the entrance side, where a pergola stretches from a portico that shelters the two entrances, one to the Sunday school and the other to the church (plate 76). The portico roof is lifted up so that light enters obliquely, illuminating the name of the church in raised blue letters on a tablet set into a richly ornamented corner niche (plate 78). In his design of the columns for the portico and the pergola one senses that Maybeck was stepping into the boots of the twelfth-century man. The square, fluted columns have capitals derived from French Romanesque churches (plate 77). Cast in concrete, they are soft and blurred, as if filtered through the lens of time. The trellis they support gives the church a gracious presence on the street and heightens the ceremonial quality of the recessed entrance. Once more, Maybeck has orchestrated the path to the entrance to give the impression of entering right into the building's heart.

The west elevation of the building is symmetrical and no more churchlike than the entrance side. A planting bed steps out from the building on the west side, giving it a natural green base. The fragmented exterior culminates in a central, cross-gabled roof, but the roof does not soar up to the heavens. Instead, its force is directed down by secondary gable roofs. Planters on the low flat roofs and a trellis for wisteria attached to the great west-facing window tie the building to the earth. Originally, there were even planters, later removed, on top of the ventilators--one of which can be seen, trailing vines, in a photograph taken about 1912 (plate 75).

Inside, a generous hallway (plate 81) stretches nearly the length of the building, dividing the Sunday school meeting room from the church proper. The Sunday school room (plate 80) has a simple but massive board-formed-concrete mantelpiece and, like the rest of the building, is well lit by windows with panes of translucent Belgian glass, which has a hammered surface that makes the windows shimmer. The panes are set in industrial steel sash, which Maybeck had difficulty persuading the manufacturers to make for him because they questioned its appropriateness for a church. He altered the sash from the factory stock by adding a metal mullion, which bisected the individual panes and created a more delicate linear pattern. Here and in the auditorium of the church the large windows (which alternate with the posts that support the beams capping the walls) give the effect of walls hung with glass curtains.

The repetitive rhythm of the windows in the auditorium creates the feeling of light and peace called for in the committee's letter. During late spring, purple blossoms on the wisteria outside the windows tint them and the light inside. Unity is expressed by the cruciform structure of the four great trusses, supported on concrete piers, that intersect in the center of the space and form a flattened dome (plate 73). Panels of gilded Gothic tracery lighten the effect of the trusses, and the direction of the tracery echoes the direction of the diagonal tension rods within the trusses (plates 82, 84). Other hidden elements of the structural system are represented in ornamental form, stenciled on the surfaces of the corbels above the pier caps and on the sections of walls that connect the piers to the structural frame of the building. Throughout the interior, tracery is used to dematerialize walls and surfaces so that instead of being ponderous, the mighty hood of the room is so activated by linear rhythms that it seems almost to be in motion. One has the feeling of sitting beneath a great tree whose limbs and foliage respond to spiritual forces.

The floor slopes very gradually toward the Reader's desk, which occupies the central place that an altar would have in a church of another sect. Behind it is the organ balcony screened with Gothic tracery. Maybeck designed all of the interior furnishings of the church, including the pews of fumed, waxed oak and the red plush cushions. Accents of red, blue, and gold enrich the warm, woodsy tone of the interior. Suspended from the ceiling are bowl-shaped metal reflectors to direct light upward and small lights in metal cones to light the pews; both have trefoil cutout (plate 83). The magical effect of the nighttime illumination is intensified by the highlighted curves of the tracery. Here Maybeck marshalled effects perfected by his years of practice and observation as an architect and as a stage-set designer.

For the building's exterior Maybeck used cement-asbestos panels called Transite, an industrial material that, like the steel sash, had no previous history of use in churches or even, for that matter, on walls. Since it was normally used on roofs and for insulation, the suppliers had such difficulty estimating its cost for the church building that Maybeck finally had to provide them with a list of every piece of paneling that he intended to use. Had he not been constantly on the site seeing to it that such materials were used as specified in the drawings, the effectiveness of his innovations would doubtless have suffered.

Although the church was published soon after it was built and received high praise from many who saw it, it was too unconventional to be immediately popular with the congregation and the community. When Maybeck responded to those who asked about the style of the building that it was "Modern," they were even more confused and put off. What he doubtless intended to convey by this cryptic answer was that he had designed the building by thinking things through from first principles and by using the most appropriate vocabulary of forms for the materials; style was incidental (Woodbridge and Barnes 1992: 88, 89-98, 230).

This terra-cotta-clad branch library shows Ernest Coxhead in a less inventive format than his other, more free-wheeling works that draw on Classical sources (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 81).

Kevin Brown, fortuitous historian, philosopher and seeker of order, at the "Live Worms" gallery paints feelings, daydreams, imposing a light hand, letting the work arise much as the wind imposes upon the sand dune, the current upon the river bed...or so he allows one to believe.

Below, separated by a trap door, is a basement inventory of ghostly hawsers, anchor chains, cartons and crates of Italian crockery and cutlery, stacked boxes of screws and nails, bolts and nuts, panes of glass.

Above putty droppings like tallow drippings are remnants of repairs of a generation or two ago, upon the wall the upside down shovel rack for brooms, mute reminders of anglers' gear, duck, rabbit and pheasant guns, the household and outdoor needs of the sportsmen, whose friends and relatives pass still along the street.

They remember Mel, his shelves filled with Figone Hardware merchandise, from the "Live Worms" gallery to the "Lost and Found" bar, the original door between the two, at the new restaurant to-be next door.

Across Arguello is the entrance to Presidio Terrace (51), the city's most exclusive enclave, through portals designed by Albert Pissis. Laid out in 1898 on land being used as a vegetable garden, it was the city's first planned neighborhood since George Gordon modeled South Park after a fashionable London crescent in 1855. Antoine Borel, a Swiss banker and real estate developer, bought the land and partnered with the realtors Baldwin & Howell to create a private enclave for wealthy families. For a model, they looked to garden city developments, such as Bedford Park in London and Tuxedo Park in the New York suburbs. The lots here are wider (50 to 75 feet) than others in the city, and the entrance gate provides a sense of exclusivity (and a place to hang a Private Property sign) ... The enclave is a compendium of fashionable architectural styles from the post-1906 period ... Julia Morgan designed 36 Presidio Terrace (1911) in the Beaux-Arts style (Wiley 2000: 281).

Both sides of the 200 block of Bush Street are lined with Standard Oil buildings (20). The first, built in 1916 at 115 Sansome at the northwest corner of Bush and Sansome, was designed by Benjamin MacDougall. Designed in the Chicago style, the exterior features a granite base with two floors of gray limestone topped by dark brown pressed brick and terra-cotta colonnades under the cornice. The building, when it opened in 1916, was noted for having the most sumptuous interior downtown. "It expresses to a nicety the princely character of one of the world's wealthiest corporations and it impresses the visitor most profoundly with the importance, the perfection, and the power of this most efficient and most successful of all America's business organizations," explained Architect and Engineer. For the mighty Standard Oil Company, one building was not enough. In the early 1920s George Kelham designed a larger building across the stret at 225 Bush, modeled after New York's Federal Reserve Bank. Standard Oil continued to expand across Market Street, opting for space and ugliness in two towers at 555 and 575 Market Street (21), by Hertzka and Knowles, built in 1964 and 1975.(Wiley 2000: 162).

The oldest and best of four Standard Oil Company buildings now in downtown San Francisco, and one of the most sumptuous office buildings ever built in the area. Every detail of its construction and finishing is first rate. The building is as fireproof as it was possible to make it in 1912, with a steel frame, reinforced concrete floors, and metal window and door frames. The exterior is clad in a rich variety of materials, textures and colors--granite at the base, gray limestone for the first two floors, dark brown pressed brick in the shaft, cream terra cotta colonnades in the upper stories, and a green terra cotta cornice.

All corridors have ceramic tile floors and marble wainscoting, and all elevator fronts and the main stairway are of solid bronze. The ground floor entrance and elevator hallway, according to a 1916 article in the Architect and Engineer, "runs magnificently the whole length of the building. It expresses to a nicety the princely character of one of the world's wealthiest corporations and it impresses the visitor most profoundly with the importance, the perfection, and the power of this most efficient and most successful of all America's business organizations." This space was sensitively transformed for use by California Federal Savings in 1976 by Bull, Field, Volkmann, Stockwell.

In compostion, the building is a three part vertical block with differentiated end bays and Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation. The upper two floors were added in 1916 and were successfully integrated into the original design. The building plays an important role as part of fine street groups on both Sansome and Bush. A (Corbett and Hall 1979: 191).

A right-angle building that is not much more than a facade on the main street; the ground floor has a colorful old restaurant, the House of Shields (Woodbridge & Woodbridge 1992: 25).

Another bar and restaurant, the House of Shields (30), occupies part of the ground floor of the Chicago style Sharon Building (1912) across the street [from the Palace Hotel], also designed by Kelham. The building was once favored by architects for their offices. Along part of its frontage the structure is only 20 feet deep and is actually a façade for the parking garage behind it. The House of Shields's ornate bar was meant for the Palace but was moved across the street when Parrish's large painting did not leave enough room for the bar (Wiley 2000: 164).

A handsome steel frame, brick clad office building with what must be the city's broadest projecting cornice and a narrow ell that fills the New Montgomery Street frontage. It was one of the many buildings constructed for the estate of William Sharon in these years. Sharon was a colorful pioneer who was once William Ralston's partner in the Palace Hotel and who later was United States Senator. In composition, the building is a three part vertical block with Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation and terra cotta details at the base and capital. Both Webster Cigars and the House of Shields retain their original interiors. The building was being constructed under a general contract at a time when old methods of bidding and contracting with individual trades were being challenged. It is a steel frame structure with reinforced concrete curtain walls, and is "thoroughly fireproof." In both its structure and the process of construction, this building was considered to be a model in its day. Appropriately, the original occupation was largely by architects and the building trades. This building is a major element on New Montgomery Street. A (Corbett and Hall 1979: 105)

(Woodbridge & Woodbridge 1992: 71).

Over the years this school [Convent of the Sacred Heart] has acquired three of the city's most imposing houses, of which the Italian Renaissance palazzo by Bliss & Faville is the prize (Woodbridge & Woodbridge 1992: 83).

The second Flood mansion, by Bliss & Faville, is across the street at 2222 Broadway (25) (1915). With a panoramic view of the Golden Gate, this Italian palazzo features a 140-foot-long reception hall, hand-carved hardwood interiors, and elaborate marble fireplaces. Flood's widow gave the building to the Catholic Church, which turned it into the Convent of the Sacred Heart, an exclusive girls' school (Wiley 2000: 275).

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