Murals: San Francisco Arts Commission

Laguna Honda Hospital San Francisco, California

In 2005, San Francisco’s health department shuttered the landmark 1926 Spanish Revival Laguna Honda, and the city subsequently passed a bond to build a new hospital, which sits in San Francisco’s West of Twin Peaks neighborhood on a 62-acre campus. The facility that replaced the beloved old hospital is interesting for the way art has been seamlessly integrated into the space. The hospital also maintains a balance between old and new. New York artist Owen Smith worked with the architecture team to design custom niches for his ceramic tile mosaics The Four Elements (2010) and Building the Iron Horse (2010). Both murals—of muscled workers laboring on the Golden Gate Bridge, and a determined farmer turning earth with his plow and horse—were inspired by the work of Glen Wessel, a WPA-era artist who made the lobby murals for the old Laguna Honda.

Excerpt from Public Art Review