My year delayed review of the 'newer' San Francisco Federal Building is probably more timely than most. It was the talk of the media some months back when it first opened, but that has all faded. It's position as an architectural intermediary; somewhere between homelessness and exclusivity is clear on a deserted Sunday morning. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate its place for inciting words of controversy. I have overheard time and again passersby decry its alien presence and stark materiality. It's raw and imposing, but it is honest in material form.
The Federal Building is arguably something of an experiment. Beyond it's prescribed energy efficient planning and radical form, the Federal Building resides at the edge of a social class. Parts of San Francisco's South of Market district are transitional areas for the urban poor. The site on which the Federal Building was constructed is adjacent to the more destitute reaches of the city. As has become evident, the buildings benches and folded corners shelter the cities neighboring homeless population. On this particular Sunday morning visit, traces of the night before 'party' linger on sidewalks and adjacent streets. The tragedy unfolds as the building turns it's social back out of security reasoning.
I like to think this building will age well. Shed it's architectural pop-culture, 3-D intensive baggage. So far so good. Galvanized appendages, perforated screens and exposed concrete leave little to be cared for. Weather as they will in the dry summer, wet winter, San Francisco climate.
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