More Modernism Than Ever in 2023: Year in Review
After a few challenging years during the Covid-19 pandemic and readjusting to new realities, 2023 was possibly our busiest year yet! This year we ran nine walking tours, two building tours, and our annual travel grant program, and presented at the Docomomo National Symposium, advocated for the legacy of Paffard Keatinge-Clay, and just hosted our second annual holiday party! We are thrilled to be growing our membership base and growing the community of Northern Californians who love and support Modernism through events, documentation, and advocacy. We are a 100% volunteer-run non-profit membership organization, so we are grateful to all our members and people who attend events as all proceeds go directly to helping us continue to run events, advocate for Modernism, and fund programs such as our Student/Emerging Professional Symposium Travel Grant. We always love to hear from our members with ideas and advocacy issues, so please get in touch! And let us know if you want to get more involved!
Nine Walking Tours
This year’s advocacy theme was “Revisiting Urban Renewal” and we hosted a walking tour through Western Addition, examining the difficult legacies of redevelopment and some lesser-known Modernist projects. We also re-ran our popular Embarcadero Center and Diamond Heights tours with a focus on the context of redevelopment. Seven of our walking tours this year were public, ticketed events (members always get discounted tickets, and free tickets at Tour Day!), and two tours were given at the AIA’23 Annual Conference, which was hosted in San Francisco, which was a chance to share Northern Californian Modernism with a national audience. We also ran three new tours! One tour highlighted the SFSU Student Center by Paffard Keatinge-Clay and another examined the First and Second Bay Traditions of regional architecture in Pacific Heights and Presidio Heights. Our new Skate Modernism tour of the California Street Corridor was deemed the “Sickest Skate Tour” by KQED Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Hotchkiss in her round-up “The Best Art I saw in 2023.”
Two Building Tours
Weston Havens House
We partnered with the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design to run two back-to-back tours the Weston Havens House designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris, and raised over $1,300 for their maintenance fund! We also got a bonus behind-the-scenes tour of the Environmental Design Archives by curator, Betsy Frederick-Rothwell!
Buddha’s Universal Church Tour
We invited members to join our board for a special tour of Buddha’s Universal Church, designed by Worley Wong. We were stunned by the level of craftsmanship in the building, which was built by the congregation themselves! Due to limited capacity, this was not a ticketed and we made 5 slots available to Docomomo members via our newsletter. If you aren’t already subscribed, make sure to sign up for our free newsletter and become a Docomomo member so you don’t miss these kinds of unique opportunities!
Docomomo National Symposium & Grant Program
Ted Barrow was the recipient of our fifth annual Symposium Travel Grant program, which awards a grant to a current student or emerging professional to attend the annual Docomomo US National Symposium. The goal of this grant program is to help make the symposium more accessible and to foster scholarship on Northern California Modernism. Ted wrote a reflection on the symposium, which you can read here, and has continued to be actively involved in Docomomo through research and leading walking tours.
Northern California chapter board members, Barrett Reiter and Hannah Simonson, also presented at the symposium. You can watch recordings of their presentations on 1960s adaptive reuse marketplaces such as Ghirardelli Square and The Cannery, and public artwork in San Francisco redevelopment areas on Vimeo.
Advocacy: Paffard Keatinge-Clay
Architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay passed away in 2023 at the age of 97. You can read the obituary written by our Vice President, Cord Struckmann, here. Although PKC did not build that many projects over the course of his career, most are in the San Francisco Bay Area and are among the most significant works of Brutalist architecture in the region. In particular, the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) Addition and the San Francisco Statue University (SFSU) Student Center are iconic and important buildings in San Francisco. With SFAI closing in 2022, the fate of the building remained uncertain and Docomomo US/Northern California has been advocating for its preservation and sensitive reuse, and continues to monitor the situation. To broaden public knowledge of PKC’s career and legacy in San Francisco, we compiled an illustrated list of PKC’s Bay Area Projects, and ran two tours of the SFSU Student Center.
More Advocacy!
Former San Jose City Hall: With the help of support from Docomomo members, the Preservation Action Council San Jose (PAC*SJ) was able to successfully stop the unnecessary demolition of the Former San Jose City Hall while reuse alternatives are more carefully considered. We congratulate PAC*SJ on their efforts, and well-deserved Advocacy Award from Docomomo US this year!
Former Berkeley Art Museum: We were also thrilled to see that the Bakar Bioenginuity Hub, which adaptively reused the Mario Ciampi-designed Berkeley Art Museum, won a Docomomo Modernism in America Award as well. Many years ago Docomomo was active in advocating for the preservation of this building, and it is great to see the building have a new life rather than sitting empty or being demolished.
Connell House: Docomomo US/Northern California wrote several advocacy letters to stop the demolition of the Richard Neutra-designed Connell House in Pebble Beach. Although the appeal to stop the demolition was temporarily successful, it appears that the property owner may still be able to demolish the house and build a new house (albeit smaller than they had originally proposed).
Holiday Party
We had our second annual holiday party … technically in 2024! We were hosted by Monique & Peter Anton in their Midentury Modern home in the Ladera neighborhood of Portola Valley, and we decided not to compete with all the other 2023 holiday parties, and instead have something to look forward to in early 2024. We were thrilled to ring in the new year with our fellow Modernism lovers — including long-time members and first-time Docomomo event attendees! We’re looking forward to what 2024 brings …