Glenn Robert Lym Architect AIA/PhD

 

Glenn Lym's Architecture Blog

  • Pages

    • About
  • Archives

    • August 2012
    • February 2012
    • October 2011
    • February 2011
    • June 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
  • Search

  • Categories

    • Uncategorized (9)
spacer RSS

My Head to the Sand, Immersed in the Past

April 27th, 2010 by Glenn Lym | Filed under Uncategorized.

spacer
The YouTube download statistics for HERE1 and 2 are interesting. Internet interest is significantly higher for my analysis of the evolution of Golden Gate Park than for the analysis of that Park’s new Museum structures. HERE2 downloads are more than 2 times greater than for HERE1, even though HERE2 has only been online for less than a month, compared to HERE1 which has been online for 4 months.

Humm, maybe public landscapes interest people more than public buildings?

Maybe people feel their interests more strongly rooted in a chunk of their landscape than rooted in buildings of which they feel no ownership?

In preparation for future episodes of HERE, I’ve been immersed in the literature of singular, historic places in the Bay Area. There is a wonderful amount of online resources – from original manuscripts of excavations at the Emeryville Shellmound – the largest shell midden structure in the western US – to a book by a young 19 year old fellow who hired on as a sailor and writes about his visit to San Francisco Bay in 1835. I’ve found myself mesmerized in a world long ago, a world somehow connected to what I know in my own life.

spacer
The other day, after one of Chris Carlsson’s SF History Bicycle Tours (ShapingSF.com), I looked at burritojustice.com, following a tip from Chris. I have always wondered where the Mission District Valencia Hotel was located – the wooden, four story hotel that sank and collapsed in the 1906 earthquake, killing about 10% of all San Franciscans killed by the quake itself. The wonderful burrito analysis combined old survey and property maps together with a Google Earth analysis to show that the Valencia Hotel stood where a masonry brick auto shop stands now, right on top of land that not only had the old 18th Street Creek running under it, but also had been filled to a depth of maybe 40 feet.

Over lunch, a friend clued me in on the new KQED video series, “Saving the Bay”. Episodes 1 & 2 cover conditions from eons ago up through 1900. I’d been aware of the impact of the impact of the American period from 1848 onward.  Of the Spanish impact from the 1770’s onward, I had been only peripherally aware of its disastrous impact upon the native peoples.  ”Saving the Bay” depicted massive land modifications that also occurred due to Spanish introduction of mono-crop agriculture and large scale animal husbandry.

spacer

« Having Shown HERE1 & HERE2
On HERE3-The San Francisco Houses of Architect Bernard Maybeck »

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.