Ritz-Carlton Club & Residences

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”.