Students on the Steps of the César Chávez Student Center
About This Item
Students sit and recline on the concrete steps of the César Chávez Student Center at San Francisco State University. Some read or write quietly, while others stretch out in the sun against the sharp angles of the terraced architecture. The exposed concrete surfaces, metal railings, and geometric forms reflect the bold modernist design of the late 1960s campus. The stepped structure doubles as informal seating, transforming the building itself into a gathering and study space.
- Identifier
- TP-ATA-0500
- 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.
Credits: Some descriptions were developed with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model by OpenAI.
- Geographic Coverage
- San Francisco, CA
- Type
- Still Image
- Format
- 35mm Slide
- Source
- San Francisco State University Archives
- Rights
- Public
- Views
- 382