The adaptive reuse of San Francisco’s Chronicle Building for the Ritz-Carlton Company brings new residential uses into the core of the city. Metal cladding, installed in the 1960’s concealing the city’s most revered landmark, has been removed, and the damage their placement did to the original building has been repaired. An eight-story addition, sympathetic with the original design, is layered back to open an important urban corner to the sky.
Originally designed by famed Chicago architects Burnham & Root, the Chronicle Building was the first skyscraper in San Francisco, and when constructed in 1892, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi. In order to justify the restoration of this landmark building economically, a large addition was necessary, designed as a modern, architecturally quiet “new”, intended to complement the Romanesque Revival “old”.
An entirely new structure was inserted within the original Chronicle Building framework. The heavy original masonry walls were seismically strengthened by installation of an internal concrete jacket connected to a new structural steel core. Complex temporary shoring was essential to provide stability during construction.
San Francisco, with its activist, politically savvy citizenry, is a challenging arena in which to obtain agency approvals. The project endured intense environmental review and historic building evaluation. A zoning height reclassification and a number of complex Planning Code variances were required. Our design approach as a progression of architectural styles spanning 100 years ensured agency approval with minimal changes.
