EVENTS CALENDAR

http://theautry.org/
The Autry in Griffith Park
4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles
Free to California Historical Society Members

Visit the California Historical Society Gallery at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. The CHS Gallery is part of the permanent exhibition Art of the West, which showcases the dynamic and evolving world of art that springs from the cultural practices of some of the many peoples who have shaped the American West. The CHS Gallery features selections from CHS’s fine arts and costumes collections that are permanently housed at the Autry. This collaboration has assured the exhibition and conservation of significant works of art from the CHS Collection by some of America’s best known nineteenth and early twentieth-century artists (including Albert Bierstadt, James Walker, and Maynard Dixon) as well as turn-of-the-nineteenth-century costumes. The Art of the West exhibition is the first of its kind to explore how shared values and interests have inspired artists from different cultures and times to create distinctive, powerful works that speak to their experience of the West as both a destination and a home.

CHS and SPUR join AIA San Francisco / Center for Architecture & Design; Environmental Design Archives, College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley; and San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library in Unbuilt San Francisco, a five-venue exhibition examining visions of the urban landscape in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

The twentieth century saw both a series of ambitious efforts to reimagine the city of San Francisco and the explosive growth of the Bay Area as a metropolitan region. In Unbuilt San Francisco: The View from Futures Past, the California Historical Society and SPUR present some of the most revealing episodes in these distinct but related streams of civic discourse through projects that were proposed but never realized. Concern with a particular site, problem, or opportunity often spans a period of decades and presents a window into a city's changing attitudes, politics, and values. Every bit as much as the cities we build, the cities we imagine and reject reveal the collective creativity of the urban project and the imperfect civics of place-making.

The subtitle of our exhibition, The View from Futures Past, is borrowed from Mike Davis's landmark book City of Quartz (1990), which imagines the potential of Los Angeles from "the ruins of its alternative future." We know that there is value to examining the future that almost was alongside the future that actually arrived. Whether we look back one hundred years or a century forward, this exhibition advances fruitful discussion and debate around issues that impact our future in our region and our California.

In the galleries of the California Historical Society, we survey three ambitious efforts to reimagine the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area as a metropolitan region—Marincello, Yerba Buena Center, and the Ferry Building—reaching beyond plans and models to depict the political, social, and economic challenges to each. Throughout, architectural drawings, letters, photographs, artworks, videos, and newspaper clippings represent the voices of advocates and detractors. Through these sites, we see the built environment of today as a collected history that is still building.

Free event at the California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Please RSVP at yerbabuenaevolving.eventbrite.com.

There is so much development under way in the Yerba Buena neighborhood, including the SFMOMA and Moscone expansions, Central Subway and neighboring Transbay Terminal as the future home of high speed rail, the Mexican Museum planned at the 706 Mission Project and Yerba Buena Gardens being separated from the former Redevelopment Commission and having its assets transferred to the City or a trust. Come hear from San Francisco Planning Director John Rahaim, Bill Carney, Helen Sause and other panelists discuss the future of San Francisco's vibrant Yerba Buena neighborhood. Panel will be moderated by John King, Urban Design Critic of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Free for California Historical Society members

$5 general admission

California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Please RSVP at sanfranciscoagain.eventbrite.com

Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, the Haight, North Beach, the Castro, the Mission, the Golden Gate . . . all posing for the tourist cameras. Under ideal conditions we share with the tourists, our honored guests, the symbolic touchstones of our collective life. Conditions in San Francisco are far from ideal. In this lecture, Dean MacCannell describes how San Francisco-for-tourists has transformed the look and feel of the city, and why he insists it has gone stale to the detriment of both tourists and locals. And he proposes a second look that honors the understated heroism of immigrants and others who are modifying the urban experience so it can continue to nurture new thought and ways of living together.

Dean MacCannell is Professor and Chair Emeritus of Environmental Design at the University of California at Davis. He is author of The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (1976, 2013) and The Ethics of Sightseeing (2011), both University of California Press.

California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco

Free for California Historical Society members

$5 general admission

Please RSVP at savingthecityatchs.eventbrite.com

Ron Blatman will screen and discuss a portion of the upcoming documentary film Saving the City. Saving the City is a lively and provocative series of four one hour programs for public television celebrating the energy and excitement of our cities. Telling stories through the eyes of people who use the city, Saving the City highlights successful and unsuccessful examples of urban development and redevelopment throughout the United States and Canada. The focus is on downtowns and surrounding neighborhoods, the most visible and visited part of our cities.

Ron Blatman is executive producer, producer and creator of Saving the City. He created and produced the acclaimed Saving the Bay PBS series about the history of San Francisco Bay. Ron previously worked in real estate development and finance in his native San Francisco and on Wall Street in New York, as well as serving as Director of Business Development in the San Francisco mayor's office in the early 1990s. He earned an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and a concurrent Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley.

A pop-up shop of the highest quality gift and stationary products from San Francisco based Cavallini & Co. will be located in the Ten Lions Book Store through December.