If you think you fully appreciate San Francisco architecture, then I invite you take a second look through the eyes of author John King, and his book Cityscapes. He dissects our fair city in a way that almost seems irreverent but is actually both insightful and genuine. more ›

Call it a subway to nowhere, or call it the greatest thing ever to happen to riders of the Dirty 30, the Central Subway is going to be a fact of life for many of us for years to come. While Stockton Street gets dug up for years, and while various pundits and politicos debate the cost and merits of the thing until they're blue in the face, we're guessing you've been as curious as we were about how the entrances were going to work in what's already a crowded part of town. Now architecture critic John King shares a couple of renderings of the most visible above-ground piece that will come of this new line: the Union Square/Market Street Station entrance at Union Square. more ›

On the cover of yesterday's Chron, architecture critic John King had a piece critiquing the San Francisco Downtown Plan, following on a recently released report detailing the plan's successes and failures over its 25 years. As some of you may know, it was this 1985 document that limited building heights across the Financial District, resulting in a couple decades worth of office boxes being built that are all the exact same height (the maximum allowable). And this is the document that attempted to make room for 90,000 new office workers who never arrived. more ›

Influential architecture critic John King calls out local preservationists in Sunday's Chronicle for not having the balls to say what he already has said in print regarding the North Beach branch library, namely that it's lame and "nondescript at best" and no one should be fighting to save it. He says that after he first printed these words, several local preservationists approached him to quietly thank him for saying it, because they were too afraid of the wrath they'd incur from colleagues if they broke rank and spoke their minds. King elaborates on why they, and the building, suck. more ›

Starting out as a way to reclaim private space for the public, this year's (PARK)ing Day in San Francisco seemed more commercial, if you will, than years prior. On the event's site, there's all this verbiage about how the (PARK)ing Day group owns the phrase, how participants must license it, and that you're encouraged to buy a manual on how to do it right. Sounds complicated, right? What's more, a slew of good-intentioned politicos and public transit hand-wringers got involved and tried ruining (PARK)ing Day by making it as alluring as a damp cardboard box. Many makeshift parks featured fliers and posters and posters and fliers and other creative-free pilings that no one outside elitist wonk circles should care about. (You just know cupcakes were involved.) more ›

In compiling his list of the top 10 in new SF architecture for the aughts, Chronicle architecture critic John King makes the glaring omission of the Morphosis-designed Federal Building at 7th and Mission. Say what you will about it, but we think it's an innovative and gorgeous piece of architecture, and a game-changer in green office-tower design. Back in November, Curbed listed the building as their #4 of the decade, and just in March of this year, King himself called it "San Francisco's coolest building." more ›

60-year-old attorney William McGrane is fit to be tied. Why? Because of noted Ferry Building street percussionist John King's daily performances. It seems that his groovy beats, which stem from the many plastic buckets and pans and whatnot he uses as instruments, are flowing into the Ferry Building and disrupting the work flow of the hardworking lawyer, okay? (We always forget that people work on the other floors of the Ferry Building in offices. It's like realizing that people live above Forever 21 on Market Street. Freaks us out a tiny bit.) Now he's suing the city of San Francisco for $100,000, claiming the sounds hinder with his work. more ›

• "Static and squat," declares John King on the new residential tower, Soma Grand. And it only gets worse, beautifully so. [SFGate]
• Have a sumptuous yet refreshing woodchuck, raccoon, or squirrel recipe? Send it to Endless Summer and you could win a "guest blogging post." [Endless Simmer]
• Fashion on the 5-Fulton dazzles. [Nature abhors a vacuum]

Pelli Clarke Pelli's Transbay Terminal vision more ›

As you know, here at SFist, we love stealing other peoples' ideas. And we've found that it's even easier to do when the idea belongs to our siblings! So we're pleased to inaugurate "Touch Up SF," a semi-regular feature in which we invite you, the reader, to Photoshop your way to fame by constructing your own SF-centric versions what journalists like to call a "photo montage." more ›

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Some organization we've never heard of and could probably care the less about, the American Institute of Architects, put together a list of the Top 25 Bestest Buildings in San Francisco. Look for attendant show on VH-1 featuring snarky comments from Hal Sparks, Ian Michael Black, and Rachel Harris. more ›

Here's todays roundup of the news more ›

-Man who shot Officer Bryan Tuvera is said to have allegedly (allegedly) killed himself and was not killed by Tuvera's partner. more ›

-A SFPD police officer was shot in killed trying to serve a felony warrant on somebody who was under suspicion for a variety of burglaries in the Taraval district. It's the third cop to die in the line of fire this year. The suspect was also killed in the shooting -A tiger mauled a trainer at the San Francisco zoo during feeding time yesterday afternoon. This happened in plain sight of everyone who was watching. more ›

Paging beleaguered Chronicle architecture critic John King! There's an article by Witold Rybczynski on Slate.com lamenting the lack of attractive buildings in San Francisco. We'd get more upset about this piece except, well, it's not like San Franciscans haven't been complaining about this for awhile themselves. more ›

This week, after years of dithering, the 49ers announced that there finally is A Stadium Plan. OK. What plan? The Chronicle's Matier & Ross say that gleefully impudent Chron sports columnist Ray Ratto's incisive piece about the team's lack of movement on the stadium put the spurs to the Niners making the conciliatory announcement that they have A Plan and that they are putting a lot of work into The Plan. OK. So, then? more ›

Ever since SFist has lived in San Francisco, we've heard one complaint more than any other--"why can't we get a decent bagel in this town?" Well, that and. "why can't we build more housing in this city?" For a closer look at the reason why we can't (build more housing, not get better bagels), one just has to look at several recent stories to see why it is that we're all paying way too much for a way-too-small-apartment that hasn't had its rent-controlled walls painted in way too long. more ›