Designing San Francisco: Art. Land. and Urban Renewal in the City by the Bay

A major new urban history of the design and development of postwar San FranciscoDesigning 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. San FranciscoÕs rebuilding galvanized far-reaching critiques of the inequitable competition for scarce urban land and propelled debates over responsible public land stewardship. Isenberg challenges many truisms of this renewal era?especially the presumed male domination of postwar urban design showing how women collaborated in city building long before feminismÕs impact in the 1970s.An evocative portrait of one of the worldÕs great cities Designing San Francisco provides a new paradigm for understanding past and present struggles to define the urban future.

Hardcover: 432 pages

Publisher: Princeton University Press (August 29 2017)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0691172544

ISBN-13: 978-0691172545

Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.2 x 10 inches

Shipping Weight: 4 pounds