Four Elements, A Favorite Lobby

Chapter 5 in Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" opens with the paragraph: "Aristotle believed that the universe was made up of four basic elements - earth, air, fire and water. These elements were acted on by two forces: gravity, the tendency for earth and water to sink, and levity, the tendency for air and fire to rise. This division of the contents of the universe into matter and forces is still used today."

This paragraph struck me, considering a recent visit to see four major murals inside downtown Sacramento's U.S. Bank Plaza. This American highrise has a great exterior and a wonderful lobby. The paintings that follow give Aristotle's four basic elements a California twist. The mural artist is Richard Piccolo. 

Earth

Air

Water

Fire

Folsom: Old West Chic

Not along ago, on a Sunday trek we went to Folsom, California's old recently-redeveloped Sutter Street strolling and entertainment area. My wife and have gone there -on and off-  for years, taking visitors through the antique shops and hippie crystal shops that used to fill the street. It was getting a little ratty, admittedly, and I don't think the antique shops actually ever sold anything. Year it and out they seemed to have the same Look Magazine covers and china cups on the same shelves. But City Hall apparently realized there were bigger possibilities here and spiffed up the streetscape (dozens of good photos in this link) the last couple of years. It's already bringing in more restaurants and bars, and even a couple nice new buildings built to look like old ones. 

 This old Folsom Hotel and saloon (A.D. 1885) especially caught my eye.

 I like the bold color and authentic Old West style. (If you like ghost stories, the hotel has one). 

Folsom's become heavily suburbanized during the recent housing and retail boom. But it has this one special oldtown setting, the kind of thing people like after work and on weekends. I am betting on more restaurants and hangouts in years ahead.

Crocker Modern

My wife and I made our first visit this morning to the new addition to Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum. It's one of those architectural projects that's supposed to define Sacramento in a bigger way. Usually, that means you're obligated to like it - to go with the civic flow and avoid death by a vote of your peers.
  We know what we like - and often it's not modern design - and we liked this museum.

(See the guy taking a self-photo with his girlfriend and the Crocker name) 

The Crocker has forever been housed in an old Victorian mansion belonging to Edwin Crocker, attorney for the Central Pacific when it built the Transcontinental Railroad across the U.S. in Abraham Lincoln's time. The new addition opened in autumn 2010 to stories like this in The San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times and another in the Architecture Reviewed Blog.  Project architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates have their own Crocker page.

Here's more pictures from inside: (I didn't take any in the galleries, which were open and spacious. The place was crawling with security who looked like they'd frown on that. The links above, though, have plenty).

Monuments To Our Ancestors Revisited: The Pony Express

The weather has been great here in Sacramento in recent days, allowing for long lunch-time treks in search of exercise and sightings. Yesterday, a co-worker and I walked to the river, trekking past the city's monument to our Wild West ancestors who rode on the short-lived, historically-resonant Pony Express.

Sacramento was the end of the trail - or the beginning, depending on the direction - to and from St. Joseph, Missouri.  A year ago I wrote about loving monuments to our ancestors. These statues give a nice flavor to cities. Below is the monument in Old Sacramento. Cheers to 18 months of crossing the West at top speed with the mail. (Brings to mind that famous line from Seinfeld's Newman (the Postman) : "When you control the mail....you control Informattion)."

235 Years of Federal Architecture

Here in the United Sates it's July 4 - the 235th birthday of our young nation. It is still a rather terrible economic time here, an era when it's almost insanely popular to criticize the federal government.

But this is also a holiday to celebrate our federal government's historic good taste in architecture. The country is filled with federal buildings that add to the ambience of many a downtown. They're not all gems. But this one, in particular, in downtown Sacramento, makes my day each morning I trek past it on the way into the California EPA building.

   This is the city's federal post office, stately in its park-like setting, a great old 1933 building now listed on the Register of Historic Places. Any government that could build like this is something worth celebrating today. I turn again to Dan Flynn's 2000 "Inside Guide to Sacramento" for a description:

"This building's blend of Neo-Classical and Renaissance architecture, suggesting government strength and stability, must have been a reassuring sight in a city wracked by the Great Depression. Gladding, McBean & Co. provided the terra cotta ornamentation, as well as the simulated granite veneer above the first floor. The exterior lion heads appear to be roaring at the lion heads facing from the library across the street. The long lobby features shiny terrazo floors and a gilded, coffered ceiling."   

 Here are some more scenes that look especially soothing in the soft daily sunlight of 7:30 a.m.

Great entry:

Access to Giants

I don't travel enough in these days of tight money and less time. So this blog isn't often about the wonders of the world or the bright lights of the great metropolitan areas.

 But as spring takes hold here in Northern California there is more time for walking during the lunch hour, for enjoying the sights of downtown Sacramento. I confess to loving this accessible old city. The founders had a good appreciation of classic Greek and Roman forms - and filled a lot of the downtown grid with powerful pillars, domes and columns.

Even an average guy out walking, or waiting for the #66 bus back home after a day at the office, can feel part of something bigger and richer than himself. I don't own these buildings or negotiate important deals inside them. But I can walk alongside them and be moved by their grandeur and classic elegance. I can feel the excellence they represent a century after they went up, and how well they speak of a time now gone.

It's a little hard to explain. But this is the great perk of working in a city with some classic architectural stature. Even the simple act of taking a stroll leads to a powerful sense of having access to giants. I do often have this feeling of being in awe of my surroundings. Sometimes it is a small lovely street scene, and sometimes the way the sun strikes the 25th floor windows of an office tower.  Surely, the designers of this classic, timeless beauty - all of them long gone now - would appreciate these small words about great work enduring. These are more than buildings for work and commerce. These are monuments.

Update July, 2011: One recent Friday afternoon I found this building opened for an event. It was my first time seeing the interior. I am guessing a wedding. Check out this ceiling! You have to go to Europe to see this kind of work. Access to Giants, indeed.

Government Town

One of the great things about living in cities is the accidental discovery of design features that jump right out and say: "Surprise!" Above is a parking garage mural in California's Capital, tribute to your typical government bureaucrat. He's perfect. I stumbled onto this guy a few days ago, appropriately, during a lunch-hour walk while on jury duty. (Gun possession case. I served as an alternate jurror on a one-day case that produced a jury deadlock and mistrial).

 Our government man above was just the beginning.  Here below are more of my favorite things about decent architecture - murals that light up what's otherwise a blank wall. (These adorn a county government garage):

  

"That Woman Has Been Sitting There Forever."

Credit, and hail to the artist, John Pugh, of Los Gatos, California.

As long as we're on the subject of murals, here below is another I've often admired above a pawn shop on Sacramento's downtown J Street. It's not complicated, just a nice neighborly scene involving coffee and generations. (Note the cat in the right window). Artist is unknown.

Finally, below is a beach town take on the mural concept. This is in downtown Half Moon Bay, about 30 miles of San Francisco:

Close up

 The context