Students in the Quad with the César Chávez Student Center in View

About This Item

Students relax, talk, and cross the Quad while the striking César Chávez Student Center rises behind them. The building—now a campus landmark—was born from a 1966 student design competition and reshaped after the 1968 Student Strikes, when architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay worked with students to create the bold “iceberg” structure with its twin pyramids: one for quiet reflection, the other for lively activity. Completed in 1975, the center quickly became a natural gathering point, framing everyday scenes like this one on a busy afternoon in the Quad.

Identifier
TP-ATA-0591
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
271

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