To make it clear, I am not one of these San Franciscans
opposed to all growth and change. Right now we are in the midst of building
boom. I prefer urban in-fill
instead of suburban sprawl eating up more orchards, farms and open space. The thing that is disheartening about
our current building boom, is the generic quality of everything being
built. Everything has the same Pottery
Barn Modern look. It could be Santa Monica, Amsterdam or Brooklyn. It’s all the same. As the new street level real estate
will have the same chain stores and chain coffee shops, this might actually be
appropriate.
I remember all the excitement when Ikea came to the Bay Area
years ago (and yes I went and shopped too). It took less than a year for discarded Ikea furniture to
find its way to San Francisco curbs joining old computer monitors and printers.
Now, a decade later the influence of Ikea seems to be playing a new role on San
Francisco’s streetscape.
A walk down Market Street from the Castro to Civic Center
reveals construction in every block.
These aren’t the faux industrial lofts of 2000. The new decade has
brought us kitchens for giants, or to be precise, every new building seems to
look like a stack of Ikea cabinets with a few subzero refrigerators thrown
in. Perhaps developers might
consider naming their projects after Ikea furniture, can you say Akurum Towers
or Abstrakt Place?
No, I don’t think we need to build fake Victorians to keep
the City’s character intact, but how about a little imagination and yes, some
buildings that blend in and reflect the City better than a stack of
appliances. Think Broderick Place built in 2007
and not the current behemoth that is NEMA. That one’s almost making Fox Plaza look
charming.
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