John Carl Warnecke and Associates Buildings in San Francisco (1950s-1960s)

Picketers in front the Lane Bryant store in 1957, source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection

The earliest evidence of John Carl Warnecke and Associates work in San Francisco dates from the mid-1950s at 55 Geary Street, the former Lane Bryant store. A San Francisco Chronicle article credits him with work on the exterior, although this work is difficult to detect today. The present exterior facade is different than this 1957 photograph.

image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection

Warnecke's next work in San Francisco was on the Federal Office Building #2 (now known as the Phillip Burton Federal Office Building) completed in 1959. Warnecke's firm was one of three firms involved in the design along with with Albert F. Roller, and Stone, Marraccini and Patterson. It's difficult to determine what the respective firms' contributions were. Nevertheless, the exterior share properties that we will see in Warnecke's later work.

Multiple stone columns run the length of the building on all four sides. These are hashed by horizontal lines top to bottom; there are four of these vertical lines for every floor of the building. Between these columns there are additional metallic columns that subdivide the intervening space into four window spaces.  The windows take up the size of two horizontal hash lines and the other two lines are placed above and below as spandrels or buffers between floors. Continuing the theme of four, the long face of the building has seventeen columns creating 16 (four squared) sections.  Furthermore this pattern is executed across 16 stories.

In San Francisco Architecture, Sally Woodbridge and her co-authors dismissed the Federal Building as "A lackluster blockbuster expressing all too well the contemporary scale of government"

The Warnecke firm's next major project was an addition to the French Hospital (now the Kaiser Hospital French campus) which was opened incrementally in 1963 and 1964.  A 1964 Architectural Record article describes the architecture:  

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the first floor are recessed behind columns to provide an outdoor shelter related to waiting space in the lobby. 

The front facade is a rhythmic pattern of glass metal between precast concrete panels. Above and below each window are decorative bronzed grills giving the effect of balconies and providing sun control for tall windows.

French Hospital, photographed by Richard E. Persoff (source: Architectual Record 1964)

Around the same time, the Warnecke firm designed the high rise apartments at 1170 Sacramento Street, sometimes known as The Nob Hill, Nob Hill Apartments, or Nob Hill Condominiums.

Above a comparatively ornate lobby floor, this structure employs rectangular repetition and symmetry on a small horizontal scale. An Architectural Record review describes:

In form, the building is a 22-story rectangular tower with arched openings at ground level, and with balconies and bay windows serving to soften the shape of the rectangle above. 

The newly constructed Nob Hill Condominium (source: Architectural Record April 1965)

After working Nob Hill luxury apartments, Warnecke's next San Francisco project was high rise to house seniors commissioned by the City's housing authority.

One hundred and eighty residents attended the dedication Tuesday at the Housing Authority's new senior citizen resident, the Mission Dolores apartments at 1855 15th street. Eneas J. Kane, executive director, said the ten-story apartment cost $1,350,000 and was design by John Charles [sic] Warnecke, the architect. Rents range from $35 to $65 a month. There are 92 units. 

source: San Francisco Chronicle December 9, 1966

Named Mission Dolores Apartments, these apartments are located at 1855 15th Street. This building's front shows more exterior variety than other Warnecke structures but is still based on rectangles and symmetry.

image source: Bridge Housing

Portions of the facade seen from the street are inset.

image source: FineLine Construction

The back of the building, not visible from the street, shows more of the regularity seen with the Federal Building.

A pre-construction drawing of 425 California Street (source: Architectural Record September 1966)

John Carl Warnecke's tallest San Francisco building to that point was built at 425 California Street for the First Savings and Loan Association, a subsidiary of Great Western Financial Corporation. (This corporation was later acquired by Washington Mutual Bank that is now owned by JP Morgan Chase).

"Glass wall construction--with all its advantages of openness, color, reflectivity and drama--gives you, the architect, uncommon freedom of expression. For full details, contact your nearest PPG Architectural Representative, consult Sweet's catalog file, or write PPG Industries, One Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. 19522. First Savings Building, 425 California Street, San Francisco"

Architect: John Carl Warnecke and Associates, San Francisco

source: AIA Journal September 1968

The building opened in 1968. Advertising from PPG Industries (Pittsburgh Plate Glass) extolls the "glass wall" made possible through their materials. The exterior was distinctive enough to draw notice in the New York Times:

The bay window design was made possible by cantilevering each floor beyond the perimeter column line by about 19 inches at intervals of 6 feet, 4 1/2 inches, and enclosing the extended area with bronze-tinted glass on three sides. The facade line is indented between the bay windows to produce a curtain wall of unusual grace.

Each side of the building has 13 windowed sections -- six extended and seven recessed. The number of sections is half the number of stories for the building (26). A San Francisco Examiner article noted that the window treatment gave the building "a facade of visual interest and enhance the interior appeal as well" owing to the natural light. 

425 California Street (image source: 425 California [website])

The building's steel frame is encased by a grey glass exterior partitioned by opaque metal spandrels that blend with the glass in the daytime but provide contrast when the building is illuminated at night.

Pacific Telephone's Proposed Bay Area Headquarters... the 12-story structure, costing about $15 million will house more than 1,700 employes [sic]

source: San Francisco Examiner January 8, 1963

John Carl Warnecke and Associates designed an additional building at 666 Folsom Street in 1964 for the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph corporation. 

The site of the future 666 Folsom Street in 1961 (image source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection).

In the early 1960s, South of Market was on the cusp of major redevelopment. A 1961 view of the site shows parking lots and older buildings (with the original 1925 Pacific Telephone & Telegraph building in the background). 

666 Folsom, 1969-1970 (source: San Francisco Redevelopment Agency collection, San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)

The building was a pioneering structure in the redevelopment of San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood.

666 Folsom, 1982, photograph by Sid Tate 

(source: San Francisco Examiner April 25, 1982 in the vertical file "South of Market" in the Art, Music and Recreation Center's Newspaper Clipping Files)

Similar to Warnecke's other buildings, 666 Folsom uses geometric patterns and repetition to achieve its form. Verplank describes the main facade being "divided into ten bays by thin concrete fins." These ten bays correspond to the ten upper windowed stories.  A thin molding surrounds each window, grouping four windows together within each grid section. 

666 Folsom Street - May 2008 Google Streetview

By 2004, SBC Communications (the successor at that time to Pacific Telephone & Telegraph) had closed up shop in the building. The 2008 Google Street View shows the building probably abandoned with a couple of boarded up windows.  

In a 2008 report on the structure, VerPlanck noted that Warnecke's building appeared to eligible for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources both "for its prominent and precedent-setting role in the post-war-era redevelopment of the South of Market" and "as the work of a master and as an excellent and early example of the Brutalist style in San Francisco." 

Around 2014, the exterior of Warnecke's structure was replaced and radically reimagined by the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill firm. Their architects rejected the "cumbersome, unwelcoming mass" of the original and replaced it with a glass facade. The Chronicle's architect critic John King wrote approvingly that "once homely boxes have a fresh sheen."

A later entry in the blog will look at John Carl Warnecke and Associate's designs from the 1970s and 1980s.

Bibliography: 

"About," French-American Foundation for Medical Research and Education [website].

"The Bay Window Is Going Modern," San Francisco Examiner August 20, 1967.

"Bay Windows Installed on San Francisco Tower," New York Times September 10, 1967.

CENTRAL SOMA Historic Context Statement & Historic Resource Survey (San Francisco Department of Public Works, 2015).

Historic Resource Evaluation 633 Folsom Street San Francisco, CA (Architectural Resources Group, Inc, 2014).

"Housing for Elderly," San Francisco Chronicle January 2, 1964.

King, John, "Out-dated Buildings in S.F. Swap Their Concrete Shells for Sleek Glass," San Francisco Chronicle April 23, 2014.

"Lane Bryant Will Open Store Here," San Francisco Chronicle March 20, 1955.

"New Residence," San Francisco Chronicle December 9, 1966.

"PT&T Played Big Role in Bay Area's 1962 Economy," San Francisco Examiner January 8, 1963.

"Nob Hill Elegance by Warnecke." Architectural Record April 1965. 

"Thoughtful Layouts for Efficient Nursing," Architectural Record October 1964.

VerPlanck, Christopher, Primary Record / Building, Structure, and Object Record, 666 Folsom (State of California - The Resources Agency, Department of Parks and Recreation, 2008).

Wallack, Todd, "SBC to Move Jobs Out of S.F. - Phone Giant Plans to Consolidate Its Call Centers, Offices," San Francisco Chronicle October 29, 2004.

Watson, Lloyd, "12-Story HQ for Bay Area," San Francisco Chronicle December 20, 1961.

Woodbridge, Sally Byrne, et al, San Francisco Architecture : An Illustrated Guide to the Outstanding Buildings, Public Artworks, and Parks in the Bay Area of California, rev. ed. (Ten Speed Press, 2005).