San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) Addition

1. 1926

   Built.

2. 1926-1928

   California School of Fine Arts, designed by Bakewell & Brown.

   Architecture, Planning & Preservation Professionals: A Collection of Biographies, adopted 2021
3. January 15, 1927

   The California School of Fine Arts, the San Francisco Art Association's school, dedicated its new building on Russian Hill, designed by Bakewell & Brown and built for about $250,000 on land bought for $50,000.

   National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service
4. 1931

   Rivera was paid $2,500 for the fresco rather than the $1,500 first agreed, through a donation from William Gerstle to the school's board, which also paid the plasterer's fees.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
5. 1931

   Diego Rivera completed his fresco The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City on the north wall of the double-height gallery, commissioned by the Art Association's president William Gerstle in 1930; painted scaffolding divides it into six scenes of city building and of the mural's own making.

   National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service
6. May 1931

   Diego Rivera painted the fresco in a month with his assistants Viscount John Hastings and Clifford Wight and the plasterer Matthew Barnes, working nights behind locked doors to finish before returning to Mexico; it was the last of his first San Francisco murals.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
7. 1933

   The California School of Fine Arts extended to designs by John Bakewell Jr.

   Architecture, Planning & Preservation Professionals: A Collection of Biographies, adopted 2021
8. 1933–1935

   Students of Ray Boynton and Victor Arnautoff painted five fresco murals in the corridors of the original building.

   SF Planning, landmark designation
9. 1934–1936

   Émigré artist Victor Arnautoff painted three lunettes in the library reading room of what was then the California School of Fine Arts, later the San Francisco Art Institute.

   Nina Bogdan, Russian American Historic Context Statement, San Francisco Planning Department, adopted by the Historic Preservation Commission October 15, 2025
10. 1936

    Albert Bender commissioned eleven mural lunettes for the library reading room; besides Victor Arnautoff, the painters included Ray Boynton, William Hesthal, Frederick Olmsted and Ralph Stackpole.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
11. 1946

    Ansel Adams, with Minor White, founded the school's photography department, credited as the first academic department in the country to teach photography as a profession. It was part of director Douglas MacAgy's postwar faculty that also brought Clyfford Still, Elmer Bischoff, Hassel Smith and David Park and made the school a centre of Abstract Expressionism and Bay Area Figurative painting.

    National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service
12. 1950–1965

    The city's survey names the San Francisco School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute (San Francisco Landmark No. 85) at this address among the bars, cafes, bookshops and clubs of the North Beach Beat scene, whose period of significance it sets at about 1950 to 1965.

    North Beach Historic Context Statement, adopted 2022
13. between 1950 and 1969

    The Office of the Assessor-Recorder photographed the property for tax assessment.

    Assessor-Recorder Photographs (SFP 23), San Francisco Public Library
14. 1950–1959

    During the McCarthy era the school hid the fresco behind a drop ceiling and a partition wall built in the gallery; it stayed wholly or partly covered, later by curtains, possibly into the 1980s.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
15. 1961

    The school was renamed the San Francisco Art Institute.

    National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service
16. June 15, 1964

    Photographed, showing the San Francisco Art Institute.

    San Francisco Subjects Photograph Collection (SFP 162), San Francisco Public Library
17. 1968

    The San Francisco Art Institute addition, designed 1968-69 by Paffard Keatinge-Clay.

    Modern Architecture and Landscape Design Context Statement, adopted 2011
18. August 15, 1968

    The San Francisco Art Institute's expansion, authorized in 1966, was under construction in an R-3 District with a 40-foot height limit; before construction the site held a stand of poplar trees. Work on the cafeteria building had been stopped by the Bureau of Building Inspection.

    San Francisco City Planning Commission minutes, San Francisco Public Library (Internet Archive)
19. August 22, 1968

    The City Planning Commission approved in part, on a 5 to 1 vote, an enlarged expansion of the San Francisco Art Institute: an office and lecture-hall building, a gallery expansion, a covered walkway and a one-story cafeteria were allowed, but a cafeteria mezzanine was disapproved, the cafeteria roof was limited to elevation 112 feet, and the adjacent stack was capped at that elevation.

    San Francisco City Planning Commission minutes, San Francisco Public Library (Internet Archive)
20. January 1973

    Pink Flamingos had its West Coast premiere at Canyon Cinematheque at the San Francisco Art Institute.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
21. April 1, 1976

    The San Francisco Art Institute's trustees having withdrawn, on 30 March 1976, the Institute's own application for landmark status, the City Planning Commission unanimously sent the designation back to the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board.

    San Francisco City Planning Commission minutes, San Francisco Public Library (Internet Archive)
22. October 7, 1976

    The City Planning Commission unanimously approved landmark designation for the San Francisco Art Institute's original 1926 building only, not the whole site, after the Landmarks Board narrowed its recommendation (Resolution 7569).

    San Francisco City Planning Commission minutes, San Francisco Public Library (Internet Archive)
23. 1977

    Emmy Lou Packard, who had assisted Rivera on Pan-American Unity, recorded the fresco's condition and retouched areas at the lower left and on the painted scaffold posts.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
24. 1977

    Designated San Francisco Landmark No. 85, San Francisco Art Institute.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
25. 1986

    Lucienne Bloch and Stephen Dimitroff cleaned the fresco, touched up scratches on its lower section and repaired the worker's badge, removing hammer-and-sickle marks that were not in the original.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
26. 1991

    San Francisco Art Institute was recorded as an unreinforced-masonry building of merit in the city's seismic-safety survey, which dated it to 1926.

    San Francisco Department of City Planning, Environmental Impact Report for an Ordinance to Require Seismic Retrofit of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings, Case No. 1990.832E, July 1991.
27. July 1992

    A two-day conservation workshop found the fresco sound, gave it a gentle dry-brush cleaning to lift dirt and curtain lint, and removed old tape from the lower right corner.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
28. May 1996

    Permit 9608525 $$$ $810,000

    Reroofing.

29. Feb 1999

    Permit 9902177 $$$ $150,000

    Addition of elevator/add office at mezzanine, modify parking.

30. 2000

    A survey of 105 properties around North Beach Place, made for the housing project that replaced it, found the Art Institute individually eligible for the National Register, and recorded that the city had made it Landmark No. 85 in 1975.

    San Francisco Planning Department, North Beach Hope VI Housing Redevelopment: Draft Environmental Impact Report, Case No. 2000.173E, 2001.
31. 2013

    Five fresco murals in the corridors of the original building, long hidden under whitewash, were rediscovered; one, of marble workers, is attributed to Frederick Olmsted.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
32. Apr 2013

    Permit 201304295667 $$$ $300,000

    Exterior handrail rehabilitation.

33. Jul 2013

    Permit 201307091380 $$$ $55,500

    Work performed in art studio at lower level -replacement of existing exhaust hood and addition of 3 new type ii hoods. replacement louver. not visible from street. vertical extension of existing interior walls & new metal studs type"x" ceiling above enclosing existing kiln room. h.c. exempted.

34. Nov 2013

    Permit 201311182190 $$$ $135,000

    Minor changes to previously approved permit 2013-0429-5667: structural revision to permit app#201304295667. add tempered glass shoes to stairs.

35. Jul 2014

    Permit 201407292410 $$$ $25,000

    Reroofing.

36. Mar 2015

    Permit 201503181232 $$$ $12,000

    Reroofing.

37. Jun 2015

    Permit 201506300361 $$$ $120,000

    Construct plans duct layout to enable interconnection of central duct collector with the work shop equipment and assist in compliance with applicable regulation. industrial ventilation. fire alarm, life safety, and fire sprinklers on seperate permits.

38. Jul 2015

    Permit 201507010453 $$$ $60,584

    Tear off existing tar garvel and install a 60 mil tpo single ply membrane about 20 sq (gray).

39. Aug 2015

    Permit 201508265367 $$$ $35,000

    Installation of new paint spray booth to replace existing. duct tie in to existing.

40. November 20, 2015

    Listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its place in American art education — the first fine art photography department, Abstract Expressionism and Bay Area Figurative painting — and for its two buildings, by Bakewell & Brown and by Paffard Keatinge-Clay.

    National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service
41. Sep 2019

    Issued Permit 201909232318 $$$ $1,500,000

    Replacement of existing plaza waterproofing, replacement of concrete topping slab, window sealant repairs.

42. October 5, 2021

    Designated San Francisco Landmark No. 294, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City.

    SF Planning, landmark designation
43. Jun 2025

    Issued Permit 202506209153 $$$ $868,581

    Soft demolition of a vacant building per ab-017 including the removal of nonstructural partitions, fixtures, finishes and capping of mep for future buildout.

44. Oct 2025

    Issued Permit 202508132954 $$$ $5,000,000

    Seismic upgrade to existing building. space to remain vacant per ab017. future accessibility to be restored under separate permit. no cfc until alteration permit restoring required ada features has been completed.

45. Jan 2026

    Filed Permit 202512081243 $$$ $15,000,000

    Change use from art college-artist studios. ext facade restoration @ (clay/brown building & residential building) and accessibility improvements, interior nonstructural improvements and limited new ext openings. repurposing of studio & admin space. add 2 residential dwelling units. seismic under sep permit.

46. Jul 2026

    Filed Permit 202606263965 $$$ $90,000

    Deferred frp permit, seismic retrofit under bpa# 202508132954.

DBI holds 57 permits for this parcel, most of them tenant improvements on individual floors. The timeline shows the 24 largest by stated cost, plus the earliest on file; the DBI query in the sources below returns all 57. 9 expired permits are not shown. The Modern design context statement dates the Art Institute addition to 1968-69 in one appendix and 1970 in another. The reading-room lunettes are dated both 1934–1936, as three by Arnautoff, and 1936, as eleven by several artists.