National Register of Historic Places
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco, San Francisco County, California
The record
- Listed
- November 20, 2015
- Type
- Building
- Address
- 800 Chestnut St., San Francisco
- County
- San Francisco
- State
- California
- Contributing resources
- 1 building
- Coordinates
- 37.80389, -122.41722
- Reference number
- 15000950
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
The San Francisco Art Institute is a building at 800 Chestnut St. in San Francisco, listed in the National Register in 2015. It was built in 1926 and 1927 by architects Bakewell & Brown in the Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival style, with a 1969 Brutalist addition by architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A and C, with local-level significance in art, its period of significance running from 1927 to 1980, reflecting the 1927 building and the 1969 addition.
Physical character
The building's walls are stucco, plaster, board-formed concrete and poured concrete dyed ochre, under roofs of terra cotta tile and concrete, with a five-story campanile, an entrance courtyard centered on a tile fountain, and roof terraces with sculptural skylights.
Historical context
The school began in 1874 as the California School of Design. In 1893 the Mark Hopkins mansion was deeded to the University of California for the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, and that building burned in the fire following the 1906 earthquake. It bought the Russian Hill site in 1924 and completed its building in 1927; Diego Rivera was commissioned in 1930 to paint a fresco, completed in 1931, and it was renamed the San Francisco Art Institute in 1961.