SF Civic Center Nolli Walk: Past, Present, and Future

In the spirit of Giambattista Nolli and his innovative map of Rome, the 2-hour Nolli Walks follow a seamless path through exterior open spaces and semi-public interiors. Each year we tour a new neighborhood. SF Civic Center has a rich architectural history with many landmark buildings and semi-public interiors. Architects represented by buildings in the tour include Bakewell & Brown, John Galen Howard, Albert Pissis, Cass Gilbert, George Kelham, John Carl Warnecke, SMWM (now Stantec), Reid & Tarics, KMD, Gae Aulenti, HOK, Gruen, SOM, Mark Cavagnero, SCB, Morphosis, IA, Handel, Perkins + Will, and Morphosis, as well as open spaces designed by Thomas Church, Lawrence Halprin, and Mario Ciampi.
The tour will start and end in the California State Office Building, one of the buildings which the tour co-leader David Alpert, FAIA, worked on during his years at SOM. The future will be represented by a full-size, on-site AR (Augmented Reality) model of one of the proposed residential towers in the Civic Center area. This AR component of the the Nolli Walks was demonstrated at the Nolli Walk in 2023. Immediately following the Nolli Walk, we will have a no-host outdoor happy hour at a local cafe, as we have done in the past.

David Alpert, FAIA, has led Nolli Walks in SF for the past ten years, most recently in collaboration with Josh Bevan, Architectural Historian, formerly with Page & Turnbull.

Tour Leaders

Dave Alpert, FAIA, CEO/Founder, Geopogo
Dave is an award-winning architect now leading the development of Geopogo’s AR Instantly software for design and construction. 3D made simple. Geopogo’s vision is to apply the power of AR to build a better world by making construction more affordable and by increasing the budget available for high-quality design. In his career as an architect, Dave worked on project design teams for major commercial and institutional buildings in the Bay Area for the local offices of SOM, Gensler, and other firms. After earning an MBA mid-career, he worked on the owner’s side coaching design and construction teams on $10 billion of projects around the country for Kaiser Permanente.

Josh Bevan, Architectural Historian
Formerly with the San Francisco-based architectural firm Page & Turnbull, Josh worked within the firm’s Cultural Resources Studio and contributes to a variety of historic consultation and cultural resource planning projects throughout California, including interpretive exhibits, historic evaluations, and conceptual master plans. Since moving to the Bay Area, Josh has gotten to know the historic fabric of the Bay Area communities through work and through recreation, often hitting the road for weekend bike rides.

Learning Objectives (2 LU Pending / AIA Members)

1. Gain the perspective that people are usually welcome to explore semi-public interiors in buildings such as hotel lobbies, office building lobbies, university lobbies, and places of worship, wherever they are in the world;
   
2. Acquire knowledge through stories of the past history of the Civic Center including its original development in the mid-19th Century and its Beaux Arts renaissance following the 1906 earthquake;
   
3. Explore the Civic Center of today, inside and outside;
   
4. Apply AR as a tool to experience the future.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

TBD, 140 Sutter Street, San Francisco, United States