Docomomo US Tour Day: Modern Chinatown

The Chinatown Hilton towers over Portsmouth Square (image courtesy of Jack McCarthy)

This year the theme of the annual Docomomo US Tour Day was Diversity in Modernism to highlight the contributions of female and underrepresented architects, landscape architects, designers, and artists to the modern movement. Like many professions, the field of architecture is largely dominated by white male architects and their legacies are entered into the canon. San Francisco’s Chinatown is a great place to explore the work of architects and designers of Chinese descent because it is not only the birthplace of San Francisco, but is a place where modern architecture exists if you know where to look. On a sunny Saturday in October, Docomomo US/NoCa led a tour of Chinatown to highlight the contributions of the architects, designers, and artists that have shaped Chinatown in the latter part of the past century.

Standing on the bridge over Kearny Street provides a good view of a number of modern buildings including the China Trade Center which housed the Empress of China on the top floor (image courtesy of Hannah Simonson)

The tour started in the heart of Chinatown at Portsmouth Square. Standing on the bridge that spans Kearny Street, Hannah Simonson, President of Docomomo US/NoCa, discussed the history of Portsmouth Square as the center of Yerba Buena, the location of San Francisco’s earliest township that soon became the only place in the city where Chinese could live and own property. Like all things in Chinatown, the existing parking garage and elevated park is the most recent layer of history that tells the story of urban renewal as city planners sought to make all parts of the city accessible to cars by running freeways through existing neighborhoods and turning public squares into parking garages. But looking south from Portsmouth Square one can’t but help notice the positive legacy of this layer of history when staring directly at the Chinatown Hilton and Chinese Cultural Center (750 Kearny Street), arguably one of the finest examples of Brutalist architecture in San Francisco. The building was originally a Holiday Inn and was designed by Clement Chen Jr., an architect born in Shanghai who became known for his hotel projects and designed hotels for Holiday Inn around the world.

The Buddha’s Universal Church was designed by Worley K. Wong and took over a decade to complete (image courtesy of Hannah Simonson).

Although modern architecture and design are scattered throughout Chinatown, two additional sites on the tour were best viewed from Portsmouth Square. Before facing the frenetic pace of Grant Street, visitors learned about the history of the Buddha’s Universal Church (720 Washington Street), and the China Trade Center (838 Grant Street). Buddha’s Universal Church was designed by Chinese American architect Worley K. Wong, an Oakland native and U.C. Berkeley alum. The church took over a decade to complete because it was built largely by church members who had to learn some specific trades on site, such as laying out the Italian-style terrazzo on the front steps of the church.

A vintage postcard of the Empress of China in the China Trade Center shows the ornate interior designed by Campbell and Wong (image from Justin Greving’s postcard collection)

To the west of Portsmouth Square is the China Trade Center, a six-story building that towers over the rest of Chinatown. While the China Trade Center was designed by Michael Cabak and Chan and Rader Associates, the most impressive aspect of this building was the Empress of China, the lavishly decorated “View Restaurant” located at the very top of the building. Although the restaurant closed on December 31st, 2014, the neon sign at the top of the building is still visible from Portsmouth Square and most of the signage can still be seen from Grant Street. The lavish interior space of this restaurant was designed by Worley Wong and John Campbell for restauranteur Kee Joon Lee. In its heyday the Empress of China was THE restaurant in Chinatown and was frequently mentioned in the articles of Herb Caen.

W. Sang Lung Co. Wholesale & Retail at 667 Grant Avenue, 1930, which would later be the location of China Bazaar (image courtesy of Chinese Historical Society of America).

China Bazaar building (667 Grant Avenue) at the corner of Grant and Sacramento, 1965 (mage courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library).

Jade Snow Wong set up a ceramics studio in the window of the China Bazaar (now the Bargain Bazaar). Passersby could see her throwing pots on the wheel and then go inside and purchase her work (image courtesy of Miguel Santos).

Navigating a group of 30 people down Grant Avenue is no small task. But our tour-goers managed to all stay together as the tour leaders brought them to the next stop at the corner of Grant and Sacramento (667 Grant Avenue). Although China Bazaar (now known as Bargain Bazaar) on the ground floor looks like a typical Chinatown curio shop, for a brief moment in time during the late 1940s Jade Snow Wong sat in this shop window at a potter’s wheel and crafted elegant Song Dynasty-inspired ceramic ware. Jade Snow Wong was born in Chinatown in 1922 and was the fifth of nine children. Although she attended Mills College in Oakland and majored in Economics and Sociology, she was inspired during her last semester in college when she took a ceramics class taught by F. Carlton Bell. Song would go on to become a well-renowned potter and enamelist and her work has been featured all major museums in the United States, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. In addition to her contributions to art, Song was a published author who chronicled her childhood growing up in Chinatown in the best-selling novel, 5th Chinese Daughter.

Jade Snow Wong at her potter’s wheel, date unknown.

The Ping Yuen Housing complex in Chinatown was designed by John Savage Bolles (image courtesy of Jack McCarthy).

After taking a brief pause to admire the artistry of the neon sign in front of the Li Po Lounge, the tour finally ended at the Ping Yuen Public Housing Project (795 Pacific Avenue). While most people do not associate Chinatown with public housing or modern architecture, the Ping Yuen housing project is an enormous complex of 4 different buildings nestled in the heart of Chinatown along Pacific Avenue that collectively house over 400 families. The buildings were designed by John Savage Bolles (who also designed Candlestick Park) and are an interesting combination of modern apartment blocks, ornamented with flourishes of Chinese-inspired architectural features. The Ping Yuen complex, original three buildings, was completed in 1951 and the opening ceremony drew a crowd of 5,000 people. Ping Yuen North, 12-story building also designed by Bolles, opened in 1961 and added affordable housing units to the neighborhood.

The stories of Chinatown are varied and while some of the places are bold and grand interventions on the neighborhood that can’t be ignored such as the striking verticality of the Chinatown Hilton, other places, like China Bazaar, require some imagination to picture what was there previously. But it is both of these stories that are important to Chinatown.