San Francisco Public Library
- Architects
- Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Cathy Simon
- Year
- 1877
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- San Francisco, CA
The San Francisco Public Library's Main Library sits at 100 Larkin Street in Civic Center. The system traces to an 1877 residents' meeting called by state senator George H. Rogers and Andrew Smith Hallidie to found a free public library; the 1878 Free Library Act created a board of trustees and a dedicated property tax, and the library opened in 1879 at Pacific Hall on Bush Street with Albert Hart as its first librarian, before moving to Larkin Street in 1888. The current Italian Renaissance building is the work of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners with Cathy Simon.
the building
A tax-funded library. The 1878 Free Library Act created the board of trustees and a dedicated property tax that funded the library from its start; economist Henry George served as the founding board's first secretary.
the style
The Main Library's design draws on Italian Renaissance forms, by architects Pei Cobb Freed & Partners with Cathy Simon.
More on Renaissance Revivalsignificance
The library won Library Journal's Library of the Year award in 2018, and is funded through a dedicated Library Preservation Fund established by a 1994 ballot measure and renewed by voters in 2007 and 2022.
nearby
- Orpheum Building
- The Old Main Library
- Federal Office Building
- San Francisco City Hall
- San Francisco Federal Building
- San Francisco Proper Hotel