It’s not often that major overhauls to San Francisco’s downtown streets also involve the careful selection of artist-designed bike racks. Or colorful asphalt art inlaid into newly paved thoroughfares. But a new streetscape project, a collaboration between city departments, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District plans to turn about 800 feet of Minna and Natoma Streets into an arts corridor, with help from designs by five local artists.
Estimated to be finished by the fall of 2023, the Minna Natoma Art Corridor hopes to transform the narrow streets into a “unique pedestrian destination,” as well as an appealing alternative to busier east-west routes like Mission and Howard.
The five artists selected by a San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC)-organized committee will design large-scale street murals (to be made with colored thermoplastic) and street furniture (benches, chairs, bollards and bike racks). Oakland painter Muzae Sesay’s proposal for the two stretches of Natoma Street resembles a stack of cozy homes with arched front doors. Sculptor and woodworker Jesse Schlesinger is in charge of Natoma’s street furniture; his designs use natural elements like salvaged old-growth redwood to connect the green space atop the Transbay Transit Center with Yerba Buena Gardens.
On the longer stretch of Minna Street, two artists will take over the asphalt art. Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, known for her supergraphics, has proposed a pattern of red-booted legs angled to cleverly denote the traffic direction and pay homage to one oft-repeated story of how the street got its name (hint: sex workers). The neighborhood’s history and current population (the project is located squarely in SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco’s Filipino Heritage District) also informs Mel Vera Cruz’s proposals, which feature designs inspired by Filipino baníg mats and hablon (hand-woven fabric in colorful plaids). Masako Miki’s sketches for Minna’s street furniture draw from Filipino myths, creating simplified, three-dimensional forms based on boulders, the sea, sun, moon and stars.
Jill Manton, the SFAC’s director of special initiatives and the Public Art Trust, says the fact that Public Works thought to integrate artworks into infrastructure improvements is by itself an achievement. While many downtown construction projects trigger the city’s 2%-for-art requirement, streetscape upgrades are exempt from that rule.
