[Pedestrian]

Johns King says, "Meh!"

SF’s massive new hospital on Van Ness earnest but overwhelming
John King
March 10, 2019

. . . a single massive box at the same corner of Geary Street and Van Ness Avenue. Instead of boorish, it’s earnest. Instead of splashy, it’s monochromatic. More than anything else, it’s overbearing — the Bay Area’s latest example of the difficulties of fitting 21st century hospitals into long-established settings.

. . . The 11-story, 178-foot-tall building is a behemoth as well, with its five-story podium filling the entire block . . . .

The problem at Geary and Van Ness isn’t lack of ambition . . . .

For instance, the slab-like tower above the podium is arranged as if two bars were pulled slightly apart, so that the ends facing Van Ness and Franklin aren’t as thick as the long middle section. They’re mostly cloaked by a dark-toned glass curtain wall, but the pulled-apart sections within each bar are clad in silvery gray metal panels to add contrast and depth.

As for putting the tower along the south half of the block, this leaves as much light and air as possible for the large condominium complex on the next block to the north — and, no doubt, placate potentially litigious neighbors.

There’s also an uncommonly generous sidewalk corridor alongside Van Ness: The wide path is accompanied by benches set on cobbled paving stones amid a streambed-like bio-swale along the street. The ambiance is almost urbane, no easy feat on construction-hobbled Van Ness, and the landscape architects at Wallace Roberts & Todd deserve credit.

But there’s only so much that architecture can do when the podium floors measure almost 2.5 acres and the slab of the tower is 384 feet long . . . .

At this scale, any mistakes are magnified — and the SmithGroup design team made its share of mistakes.

An obvious one involves the dark glass skin, coupled with dark gray granite along the base and the silvery gray found on the tower. The overall impact is as glum as it sounds.

Yes, the curtain wall comes with seemingly random window patterns and panes of glass in varied shades of gray and blue. The inspiration, say architects, were the syncopated grids of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. But compact jolts of color are what brought his grids to hypnotic life.

Monochrome was not Mondrian’s thing . . . .

Grading on the curve of 21st century hospitals — big, bigger, behemoth — at least San Francisco’s newcomer tries. It doesn’t look cheap.

Still, a little bit of color would be nice. Sometimes, nouveau-riche boorishness can be fun.

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