These are more surprising discoveries. Not the campari, that doesn’t really belong to here.

I was looking for the art institute because of a mural by Diego Rivera in the art gallery there. The first time I couldn’t find it, i.e I did but the wrong buiding of the art institute which was closed. In a second approach I got there finally and was surprised about the location. It looks like it was a former monastery, a church, dormitories, cloister, traditional setting but built in concrete, in the 30-ies maybe. And for the transformation of a growing art institute they build an extension, also an impressive concrete structure, 60-ies, very sculptural but rational, as by Le Corbusier, on top a roof terrace with fantastic view (it’s hillside, of course, as almost everything in San Francisco). Although they are probably not too far apart on a timeline and both concrete structures, side by side they create a somehow idiosyncratic relation. I was so interested in this building I almost forgot about Diego Rivera’s mural. I don’t know the relation of this mural to the whole complex, if it was there before the time of the art institute, or commissioned for the art institute? Anyway, it was one of these moments when you go somewhere because of something to find something else.

The other discovery was a church. You can’t miss it, it’s a massive travertine block at the top of a hill. It makes you so curious you just have to go and look inside. And inside an enormous vaulted ceiling structure out of concrete is revealed, so amazing, atmospheric, intense, I spend some time in this church. Later I was curious about who the architect was and found out that Nervi/Belluschi were involved. Whatever they touch, it’s something. Nearby was another cathedral, more official, neo-gothic style, kind of a mini-notre dame, but also concrete to make construction easier when it was built, I guess around the same time as the art institute’s monastery. It is so displaced and awkward, I couldn’t believe it. Totally unreal.