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Book Cover
E-book
Author Isenberg, Alison, author

Title Designing San Francisco : art, land, and urban renewal in the City by the Bay / Alison Isenberg
Published Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2017]

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Introduction Land and Landscape; 1 The Illustrated Pitch "Guys with Ideas" and the 1940s Vision for a Historic Waterfront District; 2 "Not Bound by an Instinct to Preserve" The Modernist Turn toward History; 3 "Culture-a-Go-Go" The Mermaid Sculpture Controversy and the Liberation of Civic Design; 4 Married Merchant-Builders From Home-Making to City Planning in the Postwar Suburban Boom; 5 Managing Property An "Iffy" Collaboration; 6 Movers and Shakers Publicists and the Writing of Real Estate; 7 "Urban Renewal with Paint" Graphic Design and the City
8 Model Cities "Think Big, Build Small"9 "The Competition for Urban Land" Grady Clay's Lost 1962 Manuscript; 10 Skyscrapers, Street Vacations, and the Seventies; Conclusion "Got Land Problems?"; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Notes; List of Archives Consulted; List of Interviews by the Author; Index; Image Credits
Summary A major new urban history of the design and development of postwar San Francisco Designing San Francisco is the untold story of the formative postwar decades when U.S. cities took their modern shape amid clashing visions of the future. In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Alison Isenberg shifts the focus from architects and city planners--those most often hailed in histories of urban development and design--to the unsung artists, activists, and others who played pivotal roles in rebuilding San Francisco between the 1940s and the 1970s. Previous accounts of midcentury urban renewal have focused on the opposing terms set down by Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs - put simply, development versus preservation - and have followed New York City models. Now Isenberg turns our attention west to colorful, pioneering, and contentious San Francisco, where unexpectedly fierce battles were waged over iconic private and public projects like Ghirardelli Square, Golden Gateway, and the Transamerica Pyramid. When large-scale redevelopment came to low-rise San Francisco in the 1950s, the resulting rivalries and conflicts sparked the proliferation of numerous allied arts fields and their professionals, including architectural model makers, real estate publicists, graphic designers, photographers, property managers, builders, sculptors, public-interest lawyers, alternative press writers, and preservationists. Isenberg explores how these centrally engaged arts professionals brought new ideas to city, regional, and national planning and shaped novel projects across urban, suburban, and rural borders
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject City planning -- California -- San Francisco
Land use -- California -- San Francisco
ARCHITECTURE -- Buildings -- Public, Commercial & Industrial.
ARCHITECTURE -- History -- General.
City planning.
Land use.
California -- San Francisco.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2016034058
ISBN 9781400888832
1400888832