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From Transamerica to Salesforce Tower: San Francisco's Urban Form and Future

Sunday, May 6, 2018 | 2–3:30pm

ADMISSION: $5 Members; $10 general

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2018-05-06 14:00:00 UTC2018-05-06 15:30:00 UTC America/Los_AngelesThe CJM - 736 Mission St, San Francisco, CAFrom Transamerica to Salesforce Tower: San Francisco's Urban Form and FutureJoin in an afternoon discussion with Princeton Professor Alison Isenberg (Designing San Francisco: Art, Land, and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay), CCA Professor William Littmann, and SPUR's Urban Design Policy Director Benjamin Grant as they discuss the contraption-like evolution of San Francisco and the connections between architecture, urban planning, and machines. Panel presented in conjunction with Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists.

To build or not to build, where to do it, and how much to build has been a fierce topic of debate for most of the City’s history. How does the recent building boom differ and what does the changing skyline tell us about the future of urban living? Join in an afternoon discussion with Princeton Professor Alison Isenberg (Designing San Francisco: Art, Land, and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay), CCA Professor William Littmann, and SPUR's Urban Design Policy Director Benjamin Grant as they discuss the contraption-like evolution of San Francisco and the connections between architecture, urban planning, and machines. Panel presented in conjunction with Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists.

Book sales provided by The California Historical Society.

accessibility

Sign language interpretation and CART real-time captioning can be requested for all programs with at least two weeks notice by emailing access@thecjm.org or by calling 415.655.7856 (relay calls welcome). FM assistive listening devices for sound enhancement are available for all talks and tours. Visit our Accessibility page to learn more.

about the speakers
Alison Isenberg

Alison Isenberg is Professor of History at Princeton University, where she co-directs the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities. She is the author of Designing San Francisco: Art, Land and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay (2017), and Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It (2004). Designing San Francisco recently received the 2018 PROSE Award for Architecture & Urban Planning from the Association of American Publishers, and a John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. She is currently finishing a book on the antique Americana trade. Her newest research focuses on the April 1968 uprising in Trenton, New Jersey, and has included collaboration with documentary filmmaker Purcell Carson and playwright Aaron Landsman. Before pursuing a PhD, Isenberg worked in affordable housing and parks planning in New York City.

Benjamin Grant

Benjamin Grant is a city planner, urban designer, curator, and teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2009 he has led SPUR's Ocean Beach Master Plan, an award-winning climate adaptation strategy for San Francisco's open coast. He leads SPUR's policy research on physical planning and urban design, including the 2013 report Getting to Great Places, supporting the transformation of San Jose and other suburban communities into walkable, sustainable places.

He has developed exhibitions on a range of urban issues, including Agents of Change, a historical survey of San Francisco urbanism for the opening of the SPUR Urban Center. He has been a lecturer and studio instructor in the graduate program in Urban and Regional Planning at San Jose State University and has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute.

William Littmann

William Littmann is a Senior Adjunct Professor, teaching architectural history in the Architecture and Visual Studies departments. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and his MA in print journalism from Columbia University. His current research examines the buildings used to register Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens before they were sent to internment camps. An article on the history and landscape of Parlier, a transnational farm worker community in the Central Valley of California, appears in the Fall 2010 issue of journal Buildings and Landscapes. In the same year he published an article titled, “The Final Days of the Beaux-Arts: Warren Perry and the Student Campaigns for Modernism at Berkeley,” in the 2010 book, Design on the Edge: A Century of Teaching Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, 1903-2003. A recent interview with William Littmann about San Francisco's hidden landmarks was aired late last year on the KALW radio program, “99% Invisible" and is available as a podcast through the “99% Invisible" website.

supporters

Public Programs are made possible by the Koret Foundation and The Al and Rosanne Levitt Fund for Public Programs.

Contraption: Rediscovering California Jewish Artists, an original exhibition of The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM), was organized in association with the Fine Art and Jewish Studies departments of San Francisco State University. The exhibition is presented on the occasion of The CJM’s Tenth Anniversary in its Daniel Libeskind-designed building.

Major sponsorship is provided by Gaia Fund, the Taube Philanthropies for Jewish Life and Culture, and Dorothy R. Saxe. Patron sponsorship is provided by Fred Levin and Nancy Livingston and The Shenson Foundation, in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson. Supporting sponsorship is provided by Riva and David Berelson, in memory of Gita and Henry Baigelman; Howard and Barbara Wollner. Additional support is provided by Doug Mandell and Scott Ullman.

Generous support is provided by The Contemporary Jewish Museum’s Bernard and Barbro Osher Exhibition Fund.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum thanks The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for its lead sponsorship of The Museum’s exhibition program.

Image Credit

Photo by Eduardo Santos on Unsplash