City Hall. San Francisco, California

Genius is in the Details The original and rehabilitated San Francisco City Hall is nothing short of genius. Plaster moldings and ceiling medallions were painstaking restored, bird cage elevators brought back into service, lead crystal chandeliers recast, the "City Hall" typeface - designed by architect Arthur Brown Jr. specifically for the building - was lovingly restored to all the building's signage. Custom designed door knobs, also the work of Arthur Brown Jr. were all brought back to their original splendor along with nearly 30,000 pieces of marble which were all removed, cleaned and replaced. Not every thing inside the building was restored to it's original splendor, no some things had to change. A task no less Herculean than retrofitting a 1915 building with base isolators is to restore that same building while adhering to both restoration guidelines and keeping pace with today's technological advances (remember this building is first and foremost an office for over 1,000 city workers). The entire building is fitted with fiber optic cable, all run behind existing walls. Lamp shades were enlarged to accommodate the slightly larger than normal energy efficient bulbs. Women's bathrooms now equal in number those for men - a concept unheard of in 1915 since the building housed offices, and attracted for business, so few women.

Opened for business in January of 1999, the new San Francisco City Hall is possibly the largest jewel in the city's already jewel encrusted architectural profile.

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