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 lacquered doorways that are stunning, but never any grass. always

closed and it's a very difficult entrance because wants to be welcoming to its members, but keep others out, so it's a challenge. >> this is an interesting photo you took. >> i exposed this one on purpose to try and make the point that the gross form of the building is so powerful that it tell it's you where the entrance is. you don't even have to see the door to know where to head. >> extreme symmetry and great cathedral. this is not the entrance that is commonly used except by the cardinal? >> as far as i know, it's never or very rarely on special occasions

>> i think it's special occasions, it's rarely opened. harvey took this because everyone uses the minor entries >> another monumental entries. anybody recognize this? >> the pg&e and this door with just for equipment. there is a little door next to to it for people, but the big equipment door has these carriage lamps, implying its a grand entrance for no one. >> the interesting thing is that that person consciously or unconsciously saw this big hole that had to be in the building and treated it with symbolic emphasizing elements, not just lamps,

but the protruding bay above the door to give inconsequential thing. >> i don't think its inconsequential. i think it was a good solution for this challenge. not too welcoming. this was the main entry to the oldest synagogue west of the mississippi, i think, up on bush street, near japantown, recently converted to a senior center. where they closed up the entry now a window with a coach backed up to. actually entry people go in is a tiny door 50 feet up the door that says "disabled access" here that everybody goes in and

out this tiny door. i think it's a big loss to take clearly what is intended to be the entry and block it up and sort of ignore it. >> this is very similar to the mill's building entry that we just looked at and goes no where. it's sad. it happens a lot to older buildings. >> i'm grateful they preserved the buildingx it's not easy to do to retrofit buildings. >> not sure it was appropriate because it was broken up into housing and theater space. >> a lot of the entrances that we saw are notable as being elaborate thing on a plain building. and the entrance sort of sets the tone more than anything else. this is an example of a building where the

style of entrance is completely carried through with the elaboration of the building at the roof line and the top of the base and so on. it's a very ambitious design. >> harvey, i haven't seen this, but something looks wrong to me with that. it's too plain. is it remodeled? >> i think it had no shingles. you mean the arch at the bottom? >> non-ornamental. i mean it looks as if it was added or something was subtracted from it. >> i think the latter. >> so all around the city we have canopies and marquees and awnings and building markers, such as this. a canopy. >> move the building out to

the street and protect you from the weather, but it's a way of making your building more prominent than it would ordinarily be, by pulling it out. >> it makes you think of sophisticated new yorkers and '30's movies getting out of a cab and the doormen ushering women through the rain. canopies on hyde street with rod iron brackets. >> gorgeous brackets. >> many of these have glass roofs and this might originally have been. i don't know how it was built, but i wouldn't be surprised. >> it looks like it was designed to be glass. everything about it does. >> here is a glass. gorgeous thing. >> look at the cantenary curve. >> it's beautiful. >> here is a special issue

that harvey wanted to raise today. >> quite a few examples of classically inspired designed that then sometimes inexplicably, as in this case decide decide not to be symmetrical. so you have above the entrance five bays, an odd number, just what you are supposed to have. and so the entrance is supposed to be centered under it. all temple fronts on odd number of bays, one, three, et cetera. why did they move it? it's bizarre. >> why do you think, harvey? do you think it was a planning issue or do you think they intentionally did this to dare to be different and create tension? >> i do not think that. i think it was to deal with some issue inside.

>> it's very thoughtfully done building. >> not some house in a neighborhood where the contractor just did it. there is an example of two columns marking the entrance to the door being oddly shift from the center of the bay window that they support. a building like this is produced in a less formal way than the previous one. they are both very strange though, that is for sure. >> this might have been a remodel because just below the windows sh it's quite different. so they could have modified that at some point. >> possibly. >> okay, here is another remodel. definitely a remodel. added a floor of

occupancy. >> this is a good contender for the insensitivity sweepstakes. >> they put it back. >> that is because i'm sure, because-- >> somebody made them do it. it has surprisingly stunning views for such a little house. i have been in it and it goes directly downhill. so you can see beautiful things. >> we're taking a little break here with the study in stripes. people eating. tables and chairs. where is this, harvey? oh, the museum of modern art. >> you have to struggle to find something interesting happening there. so the crosswalk was really what did it for me. >> one of the interesting things about this is just so many buildings now are being

bomb-proofed essentially for security reasons and putting up big huge concrete ballards and walls. i think one of the worst is the federal building and the civic center. this is by ken kay's work and i think it's more inviting homeland security project than i have seen in a long time, because these little planners, but it's designed to stop trucks from coming into the building. >> this is our age's version of the mill's building entrance. >> that is all that is left of it? just an arch. >> yeah. >> and then the arch flips on its edge and poking out here. >> you got it. >> that is it. we have got the arch. >> dark too. foreboding.

>> this is at the corner of 3rd and howard. i think a successful attemptin the hotel design to make an understandable entrance that completes the street wall at the corner. it's nice. >> there are no cars involved? where did the cars go? >> the cars are around the other side of the building. >> on howard. >> it's really lovely how the whole thing comes out. the entrance way is really two-stories high and it's just beautiful. the cornice and cap are just the right scale. >> it feels very appropriate. >> and speaking of the size of the column required this gigantic roofline, which it has. it's terrific.

>> mcdonald. he is the guy who designed the little box place for temporary shelter? >> yeah, he has several building in the city with this swooping, curving geometry, but he has clearly tried to deal consciously and thoughtfully with the entrance. >> pulling you in through vegetation. >> and you have showed up something earlier about space between buildings and here is another example. >> there are many precedents for it, actually. this is one of the ones i like better. i think that probably both buildings have the wood siding finish of the one on the right originally and for some reason stuccoed over the one on the left at some later

date. >> is this entry for both the buildings? >> yes. >> good, because if not, i wouldn't know which entrance for. a pair of buildings with a common corridor; enter inside. we don't have many courtyard entries. >> i was surprised how many came up when i started looking for them. >> i thought it was about six. >> that is how many. >> a classic theme. >> there are a lot of examples of this symmetrickal frame, but treated freely inside. >> this is also the trick of getting off the sloped sidewalk, level entry. >> right. boy, that is a problem.

>> it's very difficult. it's whimsical to me to have the up-and-down slot. >> very common question dealt with in immediate post-earthquake multi-unit buildings of making an entrance appear suitably formal for the main units, but still allowing access to a secondary basement space, which might be another living unit or a storage place, depending on whether it's an uphill lot or downhill lot. if it's a lot that slows down from the street, you could go down what look libe a basement unit and get daylight. >> it reminds me of new york city, a lot of ups and