The City's shiny new toy.
June 20, 2015 5:46 PM   Subscribe

San Francisco City Hall peacocks for its birthday (SLYT) in front of tens of thousands, including the US Conference of Mayors. The projection system will be a permanent donation, complimenting its elaborate LED lighting, used to celebrate holidays, Pride Month, sports victories, etc. The building was completed in time for 1915's Panama Pacific Exposition, and features the 5th largest classical dome in the world, surpassing the US Capitol. A retrofit made it the world's largest base-isolated building, while the grand dome was restored with $500,000 worth of gold foil. The new lighting, combined with the Bay Lights and other projects, have prompted discussion about creating an annual festival of lights.
posted by markkraft (11 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
SF locals Obscura Digital are reportedly responsible. It’s lovely. The gold foil was added during Willie Brown’s administration, during the previous techmoney boom.
posted by migurski at 6:27 PM on June 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


I need to get one of those projection systems for my apartment.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:45 PM on June 20, 2015


The projection was amazing. Here's another video. And the Obscura pitch reel showing a bunch of things they've done which I'd never even heard of before, many in San Francisco. The renderings at the end of the City Hall show were actually nothing like what they ended up doing.

It was really astonishing to see the highly-customized "film" - using the shape of the space to project other information and then sometimes project elements of the building itself - altered for color, texture, material, back onto itself. Reminded me of the projection-restored Rothkos at Harvard.
posted by stevil at 6:47 PM on June 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


I saw it last night. The projection was a bit glitchy, but it was also quite impressive.

On the other hand, the irony of the mayor calling City Hall "the people's palace" (as the building was called when it was built) when the hoi polloi were separated from the building and it's red carpet black tie gala by multiple sets of baracades was not lost on me.
posted by zachlipton at 7:12 PM on June 20, 2015 [6 favorites]


Love the projection of the 1950s fabric pattern(s) at around 1:06 in the video. A little sniffing around reveals a very strong whiff of

Marian Mahler's design for David Whitehead
posted by pjm at 8:02 PM on June 20, 2015


i was there for the early part of the celebration: the live music. which was pretty cool. strangely delightful and very SF to see punk performed in front of City Hall.

friends who saw the light show have said it was faboo; i imagine it must have been better than seeing it on youtube because this looks - and sounds - a bit like a bad acid trip. well, not a bad one... just, kinda difficult, heh heh.
posted by lapolla at 11:12 PM on June 20, 2015


the grand dome was restored with $500,000 worth of gold foil.

Tin foil would have been cheaper and stopped the CIA from brainwashing the mayor from its satellites.
posted by biffa at 11:56 PM on June 20, 2015


Say what you will about the projections, but that sound design was blowing my mind.
posted by mykescipark at 12:10 AM on June 21, 2015


The irony of this display is too much. As much as San Francisco wants to celebrate its past, much of the reason for that past, music, art, literature, the general weirdness that once came to San Francisco, is rapidly fading away. Artist studios across town are being converted into expensive lofts and or high tech offices. Creative people can't afford to stay here. Meanwhile City Hall caters to the corporate and the monied. The mayor gives lip service to saving the arts. What made this town was the creativity of individuals or maybe small groups of individuals doing what they loved. Now the city has been handed over once more to the corporate like it was in the late nineties during the dotcom boom and bust. Walking down Market street now seeing the roving bands of the new high tech workers braving the still mildly scary streets just makes me depressed. What will they contribute to the culture of this town? They are just consumers. And what of the producers? The slash and burn economy here will just leave their ashes blowing around the bases of those cranes depositing $5000 a month apartments on what was once an alive and creative place.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:07 AM on June 21, 2015 [3 favorites]


Nice little (visual) shoutout to the Joshua Light Show!
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 11:56 AM on June 21, 2015


"Creative people can't afford to stay here. Meanwhile City Hall caters to the corporate and the monied. . . What made this town was the creativity of individuals or maybe small groups of individuals doing what they loved."

As a San Franciscan who has lived here for several years, I can understand the emotions behind this argument... and yet, some of it is kvetching, oftentimes from those who no longer live in San Francisco.

I actually think the future for the arts in San Francisco is pretty bright, relative to many other places in the Bay Area. A big part of the reason for this has to do with the fact it attracts a lot of young people, seeking a more authentic city experience... meaning culture, diversity, and a more 24 hour environment. They are a big part of the reason why San Francisco is growing rapidly relative to Oakland, for example. These people are willing to pay for art and entertainment. The demand is still strong, and San Francisco attracts people throughout the Bay Area and around the world.

Also, it's worth pointing out that there are a LOT of people moving to San Francisco who aren't rich dotcommers. In fact, lots are students... and many of those are art students. The Academy of Art Institute recently put forward plans for an additional 6100 art students a year for their school alone, and the other art schools are going gangbusters too. A lot of these young artists are coming to S.F. from around the country or overseas, but many will no doubt stay in S.F.

Really, there are a lot of artists who successfully manage to exist in San Francisco. However, when you have a city that creates thousands of trained artists a year, it's obvious that there's going to be a *LOT* of people leaving every year, even as some manage to stay. San Francisco is fairly good, however, compared to most cities, when it comes to having affordable places for artists to do their thing.. The Hunter's Point shipyard is the largest art colony in the United States. San Francisco is comparatively generous in supporting the arts, and 172,000 units of the city’s 376,940 housing units are under rent control. (That’s about 72% of the city’s rental stock.) Compare that to Oakland, where only 60,000 units are under rent control, with many of those being very much geared towards old single room hotels in parts of the city that many of its new gentrifiers don't want to live in.

That touches upon another big factor at work here. There are lots of relatively unsuccessful artists who want to find affordable live/work lofts with good lighting and lots of open space. That, however, is not something that it's easy to find in S.F. anymore, in part because LOTS of people wanted that, most of whom had more money than your average artist. The same is increasingly true of Oakland, though. Even those artists who were able to find their "affordable art studio" over there aren't under rent control, and are now facing rents going up 12.1% in just the last year. This is a trend that is happening around the entire Bay Area, and has been getting worse for years now.

Really, it's hard for me to hear too many gripes from predominantly white artists upset about commuting in from San Francisco, when most are a part of the most serious, sweeping gentrification I know of, with people having their homes taken away with racist laws, only to be bought up by former S.F. residents, subdivided into live/work units by developers, etc. Oakland has lost about half of its African American population since 1990, and the fact is, most white people -- and artists -- in San Francisco weren't forcibly evicted... most chose to be a part of the land grab.

Meanwhile, for all you hear about San Francisco and gentrification in the Mission, city demographics show a notable increase in the Latino population... which is not to say gentrification in the Mission does not exist, but rather, that we have this process of winners and losers going on, which appeals to upscale Latinos too. So yeah... a lot of those complaining the loudest are on the losing end of the deal, or, even worse, are guilty of the gentrification that they accuse others of.

In truth, Oakland and other Bay Area residents increasingly wish they had the kind and scale of protection for renters that we do in San Francisco. A *LOT* of the problems that San Francisco has are made worse, because other cities in the Bay Area *chose* not to adopt similar urban policies proactively, which, had they existed, would've applied a significant downward pressure on rents across the entire Bay Area, improved services for the homeless and mentally ill, improved public transit, energy efficiency, earthquake safety, sustainability, etc.

My partner -- an artist with a relatively low-paying day job at a local hostel -- has been living with me for about five years now in a 2BR rent-controlled apartment on the outskirts of the Tenderloin. Our rent has only gone up about 1-2% per year, as compared to the rents of those without rent control throughout the Bay Area. As a result, we now pay about $400 a month less for rent than what our same rental agency is charging for similar units over in Oakland... and those units don't have rent control.

Our neighborhood has attracted a lot of artists and a lot of new galleries -- and upscale cafes, gastropubs, and bakeries -- in part because it does have a lot of comparatively affordable rent-controlled buildings. But "comparatively" is a relative term. I personally don't know what any Bay Area renter is going to do in the future who doesn't get themselves under rent control ASAP, because the economy is bouncing back and rental prices simply show no sign of falling anytime soon.
posted by markkraft at 5:54 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


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