Student Life Around the Cesar Chavez Student Center
About This Item
The Cesar Chavez Student Center rises like a shard of concrete ice above the Quad, its angled pyramid leaning into the sky as students scatter across the grass below. Designed after years of campus upheaval, the building holds the dual spirit architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay imagined: one pyramid for introspection, the other for noise and movement. Here, the scene settles into that balance—sunlight on the steps, small groups drifting through the plaza, the west-facing pyramid anchoring the energy of an ordinary day. The architecture watches quietly as campus life pulses around it, just as the designers once hoped it would.
- Identifier
- TP-ATA-0599
- Context
A signature building of the San Francisco State campus is the Cesar Chavez Student Center. The unique design was one of seven proposals which students had voted on in 1966. Originally, the proposal of Canadian Architect Moshe Safdie had won the student vote. The administration dismissed his design following the 1968 Student Strikes and welcomed back the other finalists to design a student center that could be “a place that facilitated student gathering but not student uprising," described in architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay’s biography. The final design was created by Paffard Keatinge-Clay in collaboration with student input through the form of a class. Together they designed an “iceberg” building with two pyramids. “The pyramid of silence is aligned with the axis of the north star, and faces northeast for “quiet, introspective activities; while the second pyramid faces west” and is intended for more “boisterous, public activities." The building was completed in 1975.
HUD suspended construction of the Student Union Towers demanding access for the disabled. Source: Zenger’s (Jan. 29, 1975): 3.- Geographic Coverage
- San Francisco, CA
- Type
- Still Image
- Format
- 35mm Slide
- Source
- San Francisco State University Archives
- Rights
- Public
- Views
- 407