Towers of the Cesar Chavez Student Center
About This Item
The photograph captures the distinctive tower forms of the Cesar Chavez Student Center, completed in 1975 and widely regarded as one of San Francisco State University’s most significant Brutalist structures. Designed by Paffard Keatinge-Clay with student collaboration, the building’s sharply angled concrete planes and twin pyramidal masses reflect an architectural program balancing contemplative and active student spaces. Constructed in the post-1968 period of campus redevelopment, the center remains an important example of late-modern institutional design and a defining feature of the university’s built environment.
- Identifier
- TP-ATA-0631
- 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.
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
- 666