good afternoon i'm laurence kornfield chief building inspector and we're at our brown bag lunch to talk about building entrances. it's of interest to me and a lot of other people in the city and we have with us today two guests, who are architects, alice carey and

a preservation architect, is that right? >> yes. >> and focus on preservation and harvey hacker, the utility architect from the fenway park backed by the green, what is it, the green giant? >> the utility outfielder. >> the utility outfielder to help us look at building entrances and with harvey's help we have a whole lot of slides and we'll project images to use as the basis for discussing building entrance issues. i want to encourage all of you, it's very inform, i hope. i want to encoug all of you to participate and if you know the building or know anything about the building, chip right in. we'll give you a mic and tell us about it. building entrances are so very important and seems that in modern buildings in

many cases they become regulated to simply functional uses rather than important parts of the overall concept of the building and the urban design. but we'll see old buildings and new buildings and we'll start with the building entrance that really becomes like the key element of the whole experience of the building. like this picture of lee poe in chinatown. is this a bar. >> so me it's similar to a theater entrance where there is a big box with no other ornament and the entrance is the entire focus. the show begins in the streets and in order to get people in, you have to present them with something exciting so they would be attracted to it and this is a perfect example to that. >> i like the fact it's so mysterious inside and dark and very come in here and

it's almost opening its giant mouth. >> and in a sense it's the opposite of what you would do in most restaurant entrances, where the way to encourage people to come in is to show what is going on inside, or even to let what is going on inside, the activities spill out on to the sidewalk as you see in north beach. and here, in fact, it is a mystery inside on purpose and exactly what you are looking for in some bars. >> lee poe, how much more mysterious could you get? and also on grant avenue. san francisco >> say similar example. >> the buddha bar, buddha lounge, once again dark inside. here is the exotic orient brought to you in san

francisco. it's very--i don't see anybody going in though. >> these are all wholesome people. >> osama bin oh, here we have a bunch of fairytale buildings in san francisco and it looks sort of medieval with the arched door and you get the feeling that once you are in there you can shut the door and barricade yourself in and pour boiling stuff. >> we have had entrances that project and this sits itself back. >> it sets itself back and projects simultaneously because it's a strong geometric form. it's on columbus avenue and you notice across the street and down the street and you are really drown to the entrance and it draws you in. you want to go into the building.

>> they have a side transitional space from the sidewalk to the entrance, do you think? >> this is actually a building that has always had a major commercial ground floor use. there used to be an italian supermarket that covered the ground floor. since the '80's has been a branch bank and now candy store takes over part of the space, so that this is just a door to upstairs office space and it's shoved way over to one side of the building, but it's so self-contained as a symmetrical development within itself, that it's never inappropriately dominated by the other commercial parts of the building. a picture of a whole building which showed the other tenants stretching

out would still retain this feeling of focus and invitation. >> individuality of this piece or sometimes the entrance is the whole thing. the building entrance, exits service. >> this is a type that we saw many examples of on the streets, of what you could shorthand as a mall entrance, where there is no front to the building. just the shop opens to the street; which is the most direct advertisement of what they are selling and in case you don't get it, the row of signs fills you in. >> well, to me, this is not an entrance. the presence of the absence of an entrance because to me an entrance is a focal point you come towards and into.

this is just somewhat of a boundary, but it's in a way the removal of a boundary. these people want you to be on the streets and suddenly you are in their store without realizing you made the transition from nature. >> i don't think they get the fact that these two big guys standing right there with their hands on their hips, looking like bouncers is inviting you to come into their store. if anything, you look at this and say i look further for my camera. >> they don't look like happy to see you harvey. >> who are you and why are you taking this picture? >> what happened after this picture was taken? >> i'm the guy they don't want to see, because i already have a camera. >> updates? >> the one thing before you go on, i really don't like this for a number of reasons. first of all, when you are in a mall and the

mall close down at night and goes away, but when you are on grant avenue and everyone closes the garage doors, overhead doors, so when these stores aren't open, the street is very gloomy and dark. >> right. >> and uninviting and somewhat foreboding. secondly , a lot of chinatown is very history historic and a lot of storefronts ripped out so these non-entrances could exist. >> a lot of people are ripping out storefronts to say they have to go with ada when, in fact, buildings that qualify as history buildings, especially many chinatown, most older buildings have lots of alternatives offered where you can have door leases, 29.5" wide and still comply

with the disability access requirements. so we need to pass the word. well, look, i'm in preservation architect and we are in the building department want to encourage president preservation of historic store fronts especially chinatown. these are aluminum sliders, but once again they are putting their stuff right in your face. >> i love that sign up there. an old sheet metal sign with neon on it. preservation of signs. >> and paint. >> and look it has little notes on it, little musical notes. >> that was the old electronic's store. >> i often wish people would preserve them and light them up, it's sort of like the hill's brothers coffee sign on the waterfront that is preserved and part of the

history, even though it has nothing to do with hill's brother coffee anymore. this is on san bruno avenue, the best roast pork in the area. they have a gate and they close it at night, the street becomes a deslate boulevard. more food down in north beach. monalisa, how would you ever know? another big guy standing and blocking the door way usually they have cute somethings there, enticing you in, but the big guys-- >> it just depends on what you are looking for. >> on 6th avenue at judda street and if you drive by, she is not looking, but she will hit you with that water. dumping out of old flower water. >> classic, classic corner entry from two posts. >> this storefront is a

little unusual to the degree it has not been changed from the original window frames, the transom windows. >> the posts not being encased. sometimes there is a post and sometimes there isn't, dependinging on how inventive the structure designer was. >> yeah, i have seen people just take the post out if it's in the way. >> yeah, just pull it out. >> these transom windows are beautiful and it's a san francisco architectal tradition to have these. >> what almost all hall of fame these places had when built was a retractable awning between the two tiers of windows. so that the awning would come out and shade the display glass, cutting back reflection, so that people on the streets could see what was inside. the transom windows being

unshaded to get maximum sunlight into the space. it's a wonderful system. >> and then some are metal and in chinatown they used to be all sheet metal awnings. a lot of is sheet metal painted. >> this is a recent example of a recent decorative entrance, but there are many more that we looked at that are earthquake-era or multi-color art deco area. terazo, which frequently remains long after the bar or movie theater or whatever was the original use goes away. >> and this one is terazo. >> so that terazo went in,

obviously at a later date than the storefront, which is pretty much original. but they both co-exist now. >> i wonder if it went out. it look like half had a pattern to me that may have one time have gone to the sidewalk. >> it could have radiated out to the sidewalk. >> that is the other thing. >> so some building entrances are buildings themselves are big pieces of the building. you were telling us about this. >> this is one of my favorites yerba buena, designed by paul schech. the building is broken down into had a handful of smaller buildings, one is the auditorium, one is the stage tower and one is the

stair. and this little glass box is the entrance lobby and it becomes its own building, so the entrance for the grand building is a building in itself and that projecting canopy, you could call that the entrance to the entrance. it's a very thoughtful and appropriate design. >> i agree and i think it's interesting too. because the regional style tends to do that, break things down and show the entrance as an entrance. so in a way it's very bay region in a new york way. >> you could actually draw a close analogy between this and the entrance to may beck's christian science church, which has symmetrical building on a corner, but then entrance

and trellisthat adopt to the corner site and completely transform the building and that is really what it's doing here. >> in the street -- and the total surroundings, it's so attractive, it pulls you towards it. >> one the big issues we see in the building department is how you get disabled access to the entry and without a doubt there is disabled access to the entrance. it's over on the right-hand side of the slide. it still has the appearance of being stepped up, isolated to some extent, this podium feel. where do you think there would be that kind of podium rather than making it feel open to the public? >> it's also a corner. >> so they have the grade change. it's strictly a functional issue. >> i think it comes from a functional issue because the

lobby is, in fact, at the level of the other side of the building that faces the park. >> where is it? >> grand avenue. >> so just like the previous slide, we have a building that is an entrance to a building. >> this is the hong kong flower lounge. >> what do we say about that entrance? >> it didn't look like millbrae, i would say. >> to me the most interesting thing about the entrance is at an intersection of two major streets, millbrae and el camino and it is pointed back towards the parking lot in clear recognition of the fact that no one comes from those streets. >> which is always a big dilemma with buildingeds today aye. lot of classical building with a grand entrance in the front and parking lot in the back, a

crummy after thought entry that everybody uses rather than the grand entry. >> here you are going to china and park in the parking lot, you have a long entrance to china. even the paving pattern is part of the cultural transformation. >> golden gate park. this is the entrance to the japanese tea garden. that was all handmade and, in fact, just recently rebuilt in the last 10-15 years by a group of craftsmen from kyoto that came over and rebuilt it. wow. >> this is a project that 3rd street and folsom called st. francis something corridor gardens. and this is a type of entrance where the entrance is the gap between the buildings, you know? quite deliberately

developed, and near my office, i go by it all the time. probably in 20 years, i have seen three or four people go up the stairs. it must be some other, you know, elevator from the garage or something like that that everyone uses. and this serves a kind of symbolic function. i think that is not uncommon and i think we'll see other examples of that. >> it's odd because it's on the corner and it creates a leech from the street inward. i prefer closed corners. >> i think it's hideous. >> that is a whole other thing-- >> it's terrible. it has all of this junk and it has tremendously strong focus on nothing. and it's overly complex and then it's got all of this junk out on the street, what can we do? what can we do? nothing,

huh? >> shall we not mention the architect's name. >> i think it had a water feature. >> it still is does. >> i see it now. >> one more element. >> originally the strip of green going up the center was water. >> all the way down, right. but it splashed on the steps too much and created a little hazard. >> if no one was using them, who cares? >> they managed to squeeze in--now they have got green, good. one more element. how many more things could you squeeze into this thing? unbelievable. and on the other side of the coin we have some fantastic entrances. >> this is one of the most beautiful building in the city and i'm ready to argue with anyone who want as to disagree. this is called one bush now. >> is this the one with the

round-- >> rocks below the bridge. >> symbolically the rock-filled moat surrounds it and the way to get over is with this symbolic bridge, but it's an abstraction of a bridge. it revokes drawbridges or gang planks, but it's in the idiom of the time it was built. >> this is a city landmark by the way. it's the newest city landmark as far as i know. >> the building that was built in 1959 is already-- >> it's been a landmark since the '80's. so it was recognized very early on as a modern building. the other thing i heard about the building. i wasn't there, but there were protests about a year ago and the police were rounding up people and putting them down below this bridge, but

there was an exit, the police didn't know about. they were putting all of these people in and they were slipping out the back way. >> there are a number of pictures that you might see coming up about the special problem of a port at a hotel, which is a very difficult thing to do well. this is a particularly challenging job that someone, i don't know who, completed recently to remodel the hotel in chinatown. >> the old holiday inn. >> right, to become a hilton hotel. i think they quite ingeniously capture the existing pedestrian bridge, which was very gloomy on its underside. and put this highly-finished and

light-filled canopy, projecting out to past the curb line. it's really the light that makes that work, right? it used to be a little dark cave you would drive into. >> we'll find on some of the recent examples that we look at that light is totally the problem. the way designers have lighted them is by putting lights in the ceilings, so you have bright pavement instead of lighting the ceilings and wall to make the whole space feel comfortable and inviting. to say nothing of dramatic. >> well, i agree with harvey this is a nice way to use the bottom side of a bridge, but when i first saw this slide, i said oh, it's a gas station. and then i saw the hillside, but it reads as a gas station to me. >> and what make it's do

that, do you think? the flag. >> bright lights from above is kind of a gas station. gas stations have covers and often have bright fluorescent lights under those. >> and the flags. >> this is at the mark hopkins hotel, which without discrimination mixes pedestrians and cars in a way that you think would be disastrous and it always seemed comfortable to me. very much like some european places. and whereas alice had stories of almost being run down. >> i live near here and i'm usually the pedestrian and a lot of cabs come flying into there and practically mow

you down. so i don't think it's always inviting. it can be a little hazardous trying to mix cars and people that way. >> i like the paving is suitable for both uses. it does require a lot of supervision and direction by the doorman. he is always waving cars around to go here or there. >> that is true. there is that. when he is on his break-- >> watch out. this is probably the worst example. the hotel argent. >> why is this the worst example, harvey? >> if you set out to deglamorize the entrance to a hotel, you can't do any better. it's really for cars only is what you are saying. >> and the doormen lets the car park in the entry. >> right, there is not adequate space. it doesn't deal with practical taking

care of business issues. it's not merely symbolic. it's just crummy. >> it's right on the streets and there is no transition. >> there is no space. >> they did try to show where the actual entrance is with the little canopy that is hanging out over the sidewalk. >> i see a car sticking out there too. >> there is an end driveway just beyond the canopy and a outdriveway here and there is no place the pedestrian is made to feel welcome. >> this is the building sfaimed as the san francisco jute box by herb cane, the knew san francisco marriott, an homage to the middle-class expectation of what a luxury hotel might be. >> i think he also said who designed this? cher? other thing about this

building, it's not stereo metric. what you see is not what you get. it's several floors. this is a train wreck. >> and it's going to be there for a long time. we're looking at some of these buildings and buildings entrances that have been there for hundreds of years. these are part of our children's and our children's children's city. >> it's the sad thing about bad architecture. bad art you can walk away from. bad architect you are stuck. it's there in your face. >> or good architecture. >> yes. >> the fairmont. wow. it has got flags and you don't think of gas station. >> this is a very lively pedestrian space and most are coming into a very dreary parking lot into a 1950's edition of the tower.

it just enlivens nob hill and it's just exciting. >> this is the only door i have entered the fairmont by. >> when i take my kids for the years that we go to the theater or the movies and hotels in san francisco, i force them to go through main entrance. they often try to direct you, like when you leave the theater, they want you to take the side entrance from at&t theater to go out. no, no. we're going to go out the way the building was designed to experience entering and exiting the building. it is an experience. it's four-stories high. >> four-stories high in mayan influenced architect, which is very unusual. >> and it continues above the entrance. >> the whole building is decorated in mayan motif.

>> i have to vote of the tall buildings in the city, this is a hot contender with thezeler brat bielding for my favorite. >> i might even rate this zeler brat. >> the 457 primarily medical building. >> it's wonderful. >> really draws you in like a church. >> so we have a couple of photos of the mill's building here. >> so see the flanking of that main entrance and see the tall piers between the windows. if he we go to the next slide those are used to develop a minor entrance to the buildingx it's all

totally symphonic >> a more minor entrance. >> who were the three ark teches for the mill's building? >> i was afraid you would ask. >> one of them was pock, but working for burnen. >> i think polk designed when was working for burnem. this is the pu club, a union club. >> it's hard to imagine an entrance that says more clearly, keep out. >> i was thinking yesterday about other clubs. there are many, many clubs and most of them don't have the luxury of all of this land that this club does. so there are many private clubs with entrances on the streets with beautiful polished or l