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Saturday 22 November 2008

Pacific Heights

Alasdair Palmer visits San Francisco

The destruction of the Embarcadero Freeway was an unexpected boon to the city: the waterfront area had been blighted by the motorway, was run down and felt threatening. Since the motorway has gone, the waterfront has blossomed: it has become a pleasant place for a stroll, with great views of Treasure and Angel Islands. Angel Island is uninhabited and a state park, and you can take a ferry there from the old Ferry Building, a magnificent construction from the early 20th century which has been developed into a market, with cafés, shops and restaurants. It is certainly worth a visit.

Not far from that building is another example of San Francisco revitalising what had been one of its more dismal districts: Yerba Buena Gardens, which used to be a hangout for drunks, drug addicts and muggers, now contains a stunning walk-through fountain dedicated to Martin Luther King, and there’s a large children’s playground with a lot of things to play on: the drunks have been replaced by kids and their parents, and it is now a delightful place to wile away an hour in the sun.

On the edge of Yerba Buena Gardens stands the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which is an unusual combination of uncompromising modernism and Sienese romanesque. It has a collection of works from the 20th century: the usual suspects — Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Duchamp, etc. — are all represented, but the San Francisco MOMA also houses an enormous number of photographs and what are loosely termed ‘designs’, a category that includes both architectural plans and objects such as armchairs and lamps.

For those who prefer art from before the 20th century, the place to go is the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a French-style palace built as a memorial to Californians who died in the first world war by some rich francophile San Franciscans. The collection is astonishing. It contains exquisite sculptures from ancient Egypt and Babylonia, as well as beautiful objects from ancient China, Greece and Rome. There is a large collection of French porcelain from the 18th century. There are paintings by Rubens, Guercino, Hals, David, van Gogh and Cézanne, among many other masterpieces. There is also a special hall dedicated to sculptures by Rodin, and another which reconstructs a room in an 18th-century French château, complete with portraits, furniture and tapestries.

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