Results tagged “historicpreservation”

Writing in the Chron, John King examines the current state of the Tonga Room preservation debate, in which preservation architect Chris VerPlanck is preparing a nomination package for saving the Fairmont hotel's pseudo-Polynesian paradise as a historic interior. "My preservation ethos gears me toward pop kitsch and industrial vernacular," says VerPlank, whose firm Kelley & VerPlanck is working on a 21-page report (link via Grub Street SF) to be filed with the Historic Preservation Commission. Unlike New York City, where places like Philip Johnson's Four Seasons Restaurant have been declared landmark interiors, San Francisco's preservation board doesn't yet have a protocol for preserving interiors -- only buildings, sites and landscape features. VerPlanck argues that the Tonga Room "represents a highly evolved and rare example of the so-called 'High Tiki' style," but King isn't buying it, playing devil's advocate and asking whether we should be saving anything that anyone claims a kitschy attachment to.

In case you aren't tuned into City Planning and Architectural Preservation news, the SFBG has a new piece about the battle surrounding the possible demolition of 113 Steuart Street, which once housed the Longshoremen's union during a historic labor strike in 1934. It seems the developer hired preservationist architects Page & Turnbull to write up an assessment of the property which failed to mention anything about the historic strike or the events that took place there, and it was only after Supervisor Aaron Peskin and preservation activists researched the building themselves that Page & Turnbull amended their report. The Guardian asserts that this was a primary reason why the Board of Supes voted to reject Newsom's nomination of one of P&T's principals, Ruth Todd, to the city's Historic Preservation Commission.

We were originally going to put a cursory summary of Partners in Preservation's program in Day Around The Bay, but after poking around on the website, it's so cool that we've elevated it to a stand-alone post. American Express, in connection with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the World Monuments Fund, will give $1 million to historic sites around the Bay Area. The way they'll determine who to give the money to and how to divide it up is by online voting.