Public art en plein air
Among the city’s new investments is the redeveloped Mission Bay district, a 300-acre plot just south of AT&T Park. Originally, it was a paradise for osprey and egrets; following the Gold Rush, it became a landfill foundation for shipyards and light industry; and by the end of the 20th century, it sat abandoned and neglected. Then, in 1998, the district was taken out of the city’s closet and dusted off by urban developers, and suddenly sprouted new luxury condos and a network of many bioscience start-ups and venture-capital firms.
The heart of this renaissance is the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), which has been one of the city’s outstanding hospitals for a century but is best known for pioneering the art of building collaborations between basic science and clinical researchers. The complex, which opened in 2015, includes a medical center, along with various specialty hospitals, a helipad, and a platoon of R2D2-like robots whirring up and down the corridors with food and medications.
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Address Mission Bay, San Francisco, CA, 94158, www.chancellor.ucsf.edu/MBA | Public Transport Light rail: T-Third (3rd St & Gene Friend Way stop) | Tip Mission Rock at 817 Terry Francois Boulevard, has a great outdoor seating area that overlooks the bay, and offers happy hour on weekdays from 3pm to 7pm.
The campus has also been enhanced with one of the finest public art collections of its kind. It was all the dream of Dr. J. Michael Bishop, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for his work in physiology, and remains on staff of UCSF. The collection comprises work by Richard Serra, Liz Larner, and Paul Kos, among other artists. Highlights include a stainless-steel structure in the shape of the word “HEAL” by Miroslaw Balka, and Stephan Balkenhol’s sculpture of four figures carved from a single tree.
To contemplate the art, find a bench in the courtyard of the cardiovascular research building, landscaped by Andrea Cochran and planted with native grasses that ripple in the wind like the water in the nearby bay. The front of the building is embellished with an alley of palm trees that are reflected in the glass facade.
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