1.
Palace Hotel, San Francisco
–
The Palace Hotel is a landmark historic hotel in San Francisco, California, located at the SW corner of Market and New Montgomery streets. The present structure opened on December 19,1909, on the site as its predecessor. The hotel was closed from January,1989 to April,1991 to undergo a two-year renovation, Palace Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The original Palace Hotel was built by San Francisco banker and entrepreneur William Chapman Ralston who heavily depended on his banking empire to help finance the $5 million project. Ralstons business partner in the project was U. S, senator William Sharon who had helped cause the collapse of the Bank when he dumped his stock in the Comstock Lode. Sharon ended up in control of the hotel as well as both the Bank and Ralstons debts both of which he paid off at just pennies on the Dollar. With 755 guest rooms, the original Palace Hotel was at the time of its construction the largest hotel in the Western United States, at 120 feet in height, the hotel was San Franciscos tallest building for over a decade. The skylighted open center of the featured a Grand Court overlooked by seven stories of white columned balconies which served as an elegant carriage entrance. Shortly after 1900 this area was converted into a lounge called the Palm Court, the bartender, William Cocktail Boothby, was a fixture at the hotel for some years. The hotel featured large redwood paneled hydraulic elevators which were known as rising rooms, each guest room or suite was equipped with a private bathroom as well as an electric call button to summon a member of the hotels staff. On November 25,1890, Mōʻī, David Kalakaua visited California aboard the U. S. S, charleston with business between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the US Government. Kalakaua, whose health had been declining, stayed in a suite at the Palace Hotel, traveling throughout Mexico and Southern California and reportedly drinking excessively, the monarch suffered a stroke in Santa Barbara and was rushed back to San Francisco. Kalakaua fell into a coma in his suite on January 18, the official cause of death, listed by US Navy officials was that the king had died from Brights Disease. The most notable feature of the hotel was the Grand Court that served as an area for horse-drawn carriages. The area was converted to the palm filled Garden Court a few years before the 1906 earthquake, where shall we find its equal. You must yield the palm to your great Western rival, as far as structure goes, there is no other hotel building in the world equal to this. The court of the Grand at Paris is poor compared to that of the Palace, andrew Carnegie, Round the World Free guided tours of the hotel are led by volunteers of the San Francisco City Guides, a program of the San Francisco Public Library. Although the hotel survived the damage from the early morning April 18,1906, San Francisco earthquake
2.
Central Tower (San Francisco)
–
Central Tower is a 91 m 21-story office building at Market and Third Streets in San Francisco, California. The building has undergone renovations since its completion in 1898 as the Call Building and later. In 1890, M. H. de Young, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, built San Franciscos first skyscraper, the 218-foot Chronicle Building, to house his newspaper. In response, John D. Spreckels and his father Claus Spreckels purchased the San Francisco Call in 1895, in September 1895, The Call wrote, The San Francisco Call is to have the finest building ever erected for a newspaper office. It is to be built on the corner of Market and Third streets, of granite and white marble, and will be fifteen stories —310 feet high, the highest building this side of Chicago. Unlike the Chronicle building it will be a building and a credit to its owner, Claus Spreckels. A light granite will be used for the first three stories, but above the third story white marble will be used, the main entrance or rotunda will be finished in some polished California marble, the very choicest obtainable, and the floor will be mosaic. The building eventually stood 315 feet tall with an ornate baroque dome—which housed the offices of Reid & Reid and it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River for many years. The structure was burned and damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. After the fire, The Call reopened its offices at a new location, The Montgomery, in 1938 Albert Roller completely refurbished Central Tower. The buildings height was reduced to 298 feet and the number of stories was increased from 15 to 21, the ornate dome, pictures to the Editors, Call Building to Central Tower. Chicago, Illinois, TIME Inc. p.68
3.
Richardsonian Romanesque
–
Richardson first used elements of the style in his Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870. This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, the style includes work by the generation of architects practicing in the 1880s before the influence of the Beaux-Arts styles. It is epitomised by the American Museum of Natural Historys original 77th Street building by J. Cleaveland Cady of Cady, Berg and See in New York City. It was seen in communities in this time period such as in St. Thomas, Ontarios city hall and Menomonie. Some of the practitioners who most faithfully followed Richardsons proportion, massing and detailing had worked in his office and these include, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow and Frank Alden, George Shepley and Charles Coolidge, Herbert Burdett. Bate designed the Grays Armory in this style in Cleveland, Ohio, the style also influenced the Chicago school of architecture and architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. In Finland, Eliel Saarinen was influenced by Richardson, research is underway to try to document the westward movement of the artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrant Italians and Irish, who built in the Richardsonian Romanesque tradition. The style began in the East, in and around Boston, as the style was losing favor in the East, it was gaining popularity further west. Stone carvers and masons trained in the Richardsonian manner appear to have taken the style west, as an example, four small bank buildings were built in Richardsonian Romanesque style in Osage County, Oklahoma, during 1904–1911. For pictures of H. H. Richardson’s own designs and some of the details, with the exception of the Richardson Olmsted Complex, none of the following structures were designed by Richardson. They illustrate the strength of his personality on progressive North American architecture from 1885 to 1905. They are divided into categories denoting the various different uses of the buildings, civic Buildings Educational Institutions and Libraries Service-related buildings Churches and chapels Residences Henry Hobson Richardson H
4.
Modern architecture
–
Modern architecture or modernist architecture is a term applied to a group of styles of architecture which emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II. The revolution in materials came first, with the use of cast iron, plate glass, the cast plate glass process was invented in 1848, allowing the manufacture of very large windows. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 was an example of iron and plate glass construction, followed in 1864 by the first glass. These developments together led to the first steel-framed skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the iron frame construction of the Eiffel Tower, then the tallest structure in the world, captured the imagination of millions of visitors to the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition. French industrialist François Coignet was the first to use iron-reinforced concrete, in 1853 Coignet built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four story house in the suburbs of Paris. Another important technology for the new architecture was electric light, which reduced the inherent danger of fires caused by gas in the 19th century. This break with the past was particularly urged by the architectural theorist, for each function its material, for each material its form and its ornament. This book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, at the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional Beaux Arts and Neoclassical styles that dominated architecture in Europe and the United States. The Glasgow School of Art 1896-99) designed by Charles Rennie MacIntosh, had a facade dominated by large bays of windows. The Art Nouveau style was launched in the 1890s by Victor Horta in Belgium and Hector Guimard in France, it introduced new styles of decoration, based on vegetal and floral forms. In 1903-1904 in Paris Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage began to use reinforced concrete, previously used for industrial structures. Between 1910 and 1913, Auguste Perret built the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, because of the concrete construction, no columns blocked the spectators view of the stage. Otto Wagner, in Vienna, was another pioneer of the new style, in his book Moderne Arkchtekture he had called for a more rationalist style of architecture, based on modern life. Wagner declared his intention to express the function of the building in its exterior, the reinforced concrete exterior was covered with plaques of marble attached with bolts of polished aluminum. The interior was purely functional and spare, an open space of steel, glass. The Viennese architect Adolf Loos also began removing any ornament from his buildings and his Steiner House, in Vienna, was an example of what he called rationalist architecture, it had a simple stucco rectangual facade with square windows and no ornament. The fame of the new movement, which known as the Vienna Secession spread beyond Austria. Josef Hoffmann, a student of Wagner, constructed a landmark of early modernist architecture and this residence, built of brick covered with Norwegian marble, was composed of geometric blocks, wings and a tower
5.
San Francisco
–
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
6.
California
–
California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
7.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
8.
Burnham and Root
–
Burnham and Root was one of Chicagos most famous architectural companies of the nineteenth century. It was established by John Wellborn Root and Daniel Hudson Burnham, during their eighteen years of partnership, Burnham and Root designed and built residential and commercial buildings. Their success was crowned with the coordination of the Worlds Columbian Exposition in 1893, the two men met when they worked as apprentice draftsmen in the offices of Drake, Carter, and Wight in 1872. A year later established their own architecture office and began work by building private residences for the wealthy elite of Chicagos meat industry. Both of them married into wealthy families which allowed them to establish a basis for their business, Daniel Hudson Burnham was one of the handsomest men I ever saw, said Paul Starrett who joined Burnham and Root in 1888. It was easy to see how he got commissions and his very bearing and looks were half the battle. While Burnham was the designer and impressive salesperson, Root became the creative genius of the company. When Burnham and Root were together, one woman said I used always to think of big strong tree with lightning playing around it. Louis Sullivan, the architect, called Burnham a colossal merchandiser obsessed with building the biggest and costliest structures of the city. The most significant buildings designed by Burnham and Root were built in the late 1880s and that is when Roots designs actually paved the way for modern day skyscrapers. Until then, buildings relied on exterior masonry for support limiting their height to 12 stories, the invention of steel support beams gave him the possibility to build higher and to add more windows. The Rand McNally Building, completed in 1890, was the first ever steel-framed skyscraper in the world, another characteristic of his designs that revolutionized modern architecture is his invention of the urban office block floor plan as we know it. As commissions multiplied, Burnham and Root had the opportunity to experiment and refine their style to create, such buildings as the Great Northern hotel, the Argyle and the Pickwick demonstrate Roots singular style. Hence, the greatest architects of the time were invited to participate in the design of the Worlds Columbian Exposition, Root died in 1891, leaving his greatest project incomplete. Daniel Burnham, despite only having experience and no formal training in the field of architecture, was then given the responsibility to finish coordinating the fair. When it opened for six months, from June to November 1893, the Exposition was home to many innovations, among which the first Ferris wheel, which was the result of a challenge set out by Burnham to design a structure of comparable ingenuity and novelty. Following his success and the loss of his business partner, Burnham continued to operate under the name D. H. Burnham and Co. The projects begun by Root were completed, including the Masonic Temple in 1892 and it is then that Burnhams architectural talent became the driving force of the business, resulting in such iconic buildings such as the Flatiron Building in New York City
9.
Skyscraper
–
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
10.
Financial District, San Francisco
–
The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, that serves as its main central business district. It is home to the citys largest concentration of headquarters, law firms, insurance companies, real estate firms, banks, savings and loans. All six San Francisco Fortune 500 companies—McKesson, Wells Fargo, PG&E, Gap, Charles Schwab, the citys tallest buildings, including 555 California Street and the Transamerica Pyramid, and many other tall buildings, such as 101 California Street and 345 California Street are located there. Montgomery Street is the heart of the district. Since the 1980s, restrictions on high rise construction have shifted new development to the adjacent South of Market area surrounding the Transbay Transit Center and this area is sometimes called the South Financial District by real estate developers, or simply included as part of the Financial District itself. It was not until 1835 that the first settlers established themselves on the shore of Yerba Buena Cove, Yerba Buenas potential as a seaport made it the eventual center for European and American settlement. Gold Rush wealth and business made it the capital of the west coast as many banks. The west coasts first and only skyscrapers, were built in the area along Market Street, the neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. By 1910, the area was rebuilt with low-rise, masonry-clad buildings ranging from six to twelve stories in height. Due to new building and earthquake retrofitting technologies, the restrictions were lifted. This boom accelerated under mayor Dianne Feinstein during the 1980s, something her critics labelled as Manhattanization and this caused widespread opposition citywide leading to the skyscraper revolt similar to the freeway revolt in the city years earlier. The skyscraper revolt led to the city imposing extremely strict, European-style height restrictions on building construction citywide. Due to these restrictions, lack of buildable lots, and changes in the local real estate market. To encourage new development south of Market, and to fund the replacement for the Transbay Terminal. As a result, nearly all new high rise construction since the 1980s has taken place South of Market, notable examples include the JPMorgan Chase Building,555 Mission Street,101 Second Street, the Four Seasons Hotel, The Paramount, and the Millennium Tower. Adjacent to the Financial District to the west is the Union Square shopping district, to the northwest is Chinatown, and to the north is North Beach and Jackson Square. To the east lies the Embarcadero waterfront and the Ferry Building, to the south lies Market Street and the South of Market district. The Financial District is served by more than two dozen Muni bus and rail lines, including one cable car line, as well as Montgomery Street Station, the nickname FiDi is occasionally employed, analogous to nearby SoMa
