I love the looks of this "craftsman style" building. It has a small plaque saying it was build in 1905, one year before the massive earthquake that shook not only San Francisco, but Santa Rosa, Ukiah, and Willits. The brick facade of a hotel in town collapsed and killed a man, the temblor was so strong. Many brick chimneys fell down as well. But this office building must have weathered the shake, probably with some repair. I'm told it started out as quarters for Northwestern Redwood Company, not to be confused with the railroad company, and is located at the intersection of Commercial Street and the railroad line, diagonally across from the train station. It still seems to be in use, but I don't know who occupies it now.
For information about the Craftsman era of architecture, check out what Laurie said on her blog, Glimpses of South Pasadena
10 comments:
All that red but so many textures — brick, wood, tile. I love it too!
I don't know why exactly but it looks like it was built with Lincoln Logs. Anybody remember those? Glad it survived all the shakes through the years.
First of all, thank you for the long and thoughtful comment on my blog.
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This building does look unique architecturally. Could it be the wood element that saved it from the tremor, being light all. Traditional Sundanese buildings of Bandung use bamboos and woods and they withstand tremors/earthquakes a lot better than the modern brick and concrete buildings.
I love this building.
It certainly looks historical and almost like a kind of fire station.
Beautiful! No stucco, no composite materials. Like Hilda said: brick, wood, tile. So much more "real".
What a lovely exterior! I would love to see the inside, too.
BTW, I enjoy the choices of photos here. I'm always being inspired to try shots of different subjects. I'm not always happy with the results but at least I'm not just shooting flowers and wildlife anymore.
San Francisco gets all the attention when the subject of the massive 1906 earthquake comes up. People forget how far that quake went.
The church "Louis" et Mme. la Vache attend in San Francisco barely survived the earthquake and fire.
The basement of the church served as a hospital and soup kitchen. The story is HERE.
Thank you all so much for posting here! I enjoy seeing this building for all the reasons you have pointed out. Most homes are built with wood frames, and so do pretty well in earthquakes. But I think other engineering methods are helping the institutional buildings as well. I'm just glad this one hasn't burned down or been torn down.
I'm tight for time this evening. Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.
Hey Elaine, I just saw that you linked to my blog post here -- thank you!
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