![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sdg-migration-met.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/12185057\/fa41795d630276254b10b5cadf255d78-presidio2.jpg\")
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Development fights in prosperous, contentious cities are rarely as simple as the surface issues at hand, such as traffic or height. The proposals that cause a widespread civic fuss strike deeper\u2014churning up gut reactions to culture and class, the evolving urban landscape, and how things ought to be, even if no two people define utopia in quite the same way. So it\u2019s no wonder that San Francisco became transfixed last fall by the question\u00a0of whether billionaire filmmaker and Bay Area resident George Lucas should be allowed to write a $700 million check to build and endow a museum showcasing his personal tastes in art. Or why a fight that from a distance seems absurd\u2014more West Coast navel-gazing over a proposal that would make most municipalities swoon\u2014exposed, in fact, a basic truth that other cities would do well to note: Big, easy answers aren\u2019t nearly as persuasive as the underlying logic of place.<\/p>\n
The finale in this saga came in early February, when the directors of the Presidio Trust closed down a competition<\/a> that had begun 14 months earlier with 16 teams offering their best shot at crafting \u201ca resource for the community and a national and international draw.\u201d It sounds grandiose, but it boiled down to\u00a0the chance to replace a 93,000-square-foot commissary-turned-sporting-goods-store with a cultural facility of, you guessed it, roughly 93,000 square feet.<\/p>\n Put that way, the whole mess seems overblown. And when you consider that one of\u00a0the three finalists was Lucas, the creator\u00a0of\u00a0Star Wars <\/em>and an undeniable force in the rise of digital animation, why on earth\u00a0would any right-minded decision maker say no? Fair question\u2014unless you understand\u00a0the surroundings of what otherwise is a\u00a0parking lot and retail box that could be found on the outskirts of any American suburb.<\/p>\n The former commissary stands across from Crissy Field, a 130-acre open space designed by Hargreaves Associates that\u00a0in 2001 replaced a military airfield and supply yard. There\u2019s\u00a0a meadow-scaled lawn now dotted with\u00a0eight immense Mark di Suvero sculptures,\u00a0a re-created marsh, picnic spaces against\u00a0a bluff and, connecting it all, a promenade\u00a0along San Francisco Bay that extends beyond Crissy Field to conclude at a Civil War\u2013era fort beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.<\/p>\n The too-good-to-be-true setting doubles\u00a0as the north rim of the Presidio, a former army post that in 1994 was added to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Though it\u2019s within San Francisco\u2019s boundaries, the 1,491-acre enclave is an autonomous piece of the National Park Service, required by Congress to be financially self-sufficient. The trust is managed by seven board members\u2014six appointed by the president and one by the secretary of the interior.<\/p>\n When the Presidio began its new life, skeptics predicted it would degenerate into\u00a0a thicket of homeless campers, blackberry vines, and fallen trees. Instead, what has emerged is a weave of forests and historic military buildings where wide trails lead\u00a0past creeks freed from culverts, or freshly planted hillsides where the army dumped trash for decades. There are three Andy Goldsworthy installations, each an imaginative response to the setting. On the Presidio\u2019s Main Post, the asphalt that covered the\u00a0traditional parade ground has been replaced\u00a0in part with a formal green where, during\u00a0the summer, bonfires and food trucks are weekly attractions.<\/p>\n In between the Main Post and Crissy Field is the biggest project since military days\u2014the rebuilding of the steel viaduct that, for 75 years, was the link between the Golden Gate Bridge and the neighborhoods of central San Francisco. The $1 billion project was born\u00a0of engineering needs\u2014seismic safety, for starters\u2014but it includes two artificial bluffs that will drape across the redone roadway. The commissary site sits between the bluffs-to-be, across from the marsh, at the hinge where the different worlds will meet someday.<\/p>\n The thread linking all these changes is that they seem natural, even when they\u2019re not. You can quibble with the details, such as former officers\u2019 homes that rent for $15,000 a month (this is not a typo; the least expensive apartment of the 1,200 residential units in the park\u2019s restored buildings goes for $2,400),\u00a0but there\u2019s an overall sense that the Presidio is becoming what it innately has wanted to\u00a0be all along\u2014a blend of city and nature unlike any in the country.<\/p>\n The Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, by contrast, was an elevator pitch gone astray: Star <\/em>Wars<\/em> wizard blesses public with his take on popular storytelling of the past 125 years!\u00a0A family-friendly arc stretching from Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish to the computerized cartoon magic of Toy Story, <\/em>in\u00a0a triumph of neo-classicism complete with\u00a0an arched entryway beneath a grand dome, the arch resting atop columns cast as stone figures with wings.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have enough walls, which is why\u00a0I want to build a museum,\u201d Lucas told the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em> last March in a front-page interview that ran the day the\u00a016 competitors filed their initial proposals.\u00a0As for the notion that his brand of \u201cpopulist art\u201d might not merit museum status on a premier site, Lucas demurred, \u201cAs a popular artist, I hit the same chord with people that Rockwell hit, that Michelangelo hit, that the people who painted on caves in France hit.\u201d So there.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the lobbying campaign for\u00a0the museum was as methodical as the rollout\u00a0of a summer blockbuster, striving to please every audience demographic while conjuring an air of thunderous inevitability. When the three finalists submitted their full proposals last September, only one came with 27 endorsement letters that would do a red carpet proud. Martin Scorsese proclaimed his \u201cwholehearted support\u201d for a museum that \u201cexplores our shared cultural mythology.\u201d Governor Jerry Brown intoned that \u201cthis means substantial job creation. . . at\u00a0no cost to the taxpayer.\u201d Financier Charles Schwab thanked Lucas for showing him collection highlights and, by the way, \u201clunch was terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n There was an implicit hubris to all this\u2014and the implicit was made explicit again\u00a0and again. One endorsement letter was from socialite powerhouse Diane B. \u201cDede\u201d Wilsey, president of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Besides expressing satisfaction that a self-financed museum means \u201cthere will be no fund-raising to interfere with the efforts of the symphony, fine arts museums, opera, or ballet,\u201d Wilsey added, \u201cI know Mr. Lucas will be sensitive to the concerns of\u00a0the myriads of people who offer opinions, warranted or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Two months later, a much different power-house weighed in\u2014venture capitalist Ron Conway. A confidante of the mayor and self-appointed voice of the technology firms that have become an economic force in the city, Conway gathered 35 signatures\u2014including cofounders of Twitter, YouTube and Airbnb\u2014in a letter that declared \u201cthere is no greater innovator around than George Lucas\u201d and that the trust\u2019s selection of his proposal would send a message \u201cthat San Francisco\u00a0is, and will remain, this country\u2019s capital\u00a0of innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n This cast of characters had more clout than the architecture buffs who were mortified that the Lucas design looked like a napkin sketch by someone with delusions of Beaux Arts grandeur. But their arguments reduced the Presidio to a scenic blank slate for San Francisco where friends of George could leave their mark, whether in the cause of tech triumphalism or to add another bauble to the city\u2019s collection of cultural jewels.<\/p>\n And that sense of entitlement triggered resistance from a power bloc of a different sort: the private foundations who have donated more than $75 million to help make today\u2019s Presidio what it is…well-connected players who were on the field when Lucas\u00a0was busy selling his empire to Walt Disney\u00a0Company for $4 billion.<\/p>\n Foundations like this rarely make fusses\u00a0in public. So it was news when the Evelyn\u00a0& Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the largest single donor to Crissy Field\u2019s restoration, asked that any decision be put off at least three years to let people see how the former commissary site fit the redone landscape. And when several other foundations followed with similar letters. And when the National Park Service joined in. \u201cThe proper stewardship of the Presidio merits taking the long view,\u201d wrote Frank Dean, general superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. \u201cWhile the programs of the proposed (Lucas) museum seem interesting, the museum\u2019s offerings could be located anywhere; therefore, the museum does not merit one of the most important sites in the entire Presidio.\u201d<\/p>\n These arguments, polite but blunt, are the ones that carried the day. And for a very simple reason: They resonated with the reality experienced by people familiar with the Presidio. It is a national treasure and a work in progress, where the most satisfying additions have a feeling of fine-grain inevitability.<\/p>\n By their nature, cities resist easy solutions or magic bullets. The ones that endure are complex terrains, seductive and unpredictable. If nothing else, the ongoing transformation of the Presidio shows the value that comes through a procession of small steps, each taking cues from what came before. Changes that fill in the blanks rather than send the plot in a new direction\u2014no matter who the author, or auteur, might be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The famous filmmaker fails to sell\u201cI don\u2019t have enough walls, which is why\u00a0I want to build a museum,\u201d Lucas told the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sdg-migration-met.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/12185057\/25a2e00f241f06e0c2dcb703ad0d5270-presidio3.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLucas’s proposal was just one of three finalists announced in September to revitalize Presidio.\u00a0(All the proposals were shot down in February.)\u00a0The Bridge\/Sustainability Project, designed by WRNS Studio<\/a>, was envisioned as a hybrid museum, science, and nature center.<\/h4>\n
LCourtesy WRNS Studio\/Presidio Trust<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sdg-migration-met.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/12185058\/aec150e8c05d129cbc6177a83fdb267c-presidio.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEHDD Architecture<\/a> created the Presidio Exchange plan. It would have used part of the old commissary and created diagonal paths through the building.<\/h4>\n
Courtesy steelblue<\/h4>\n
The controversy exposed, in fact, a basic truth that other cities would do well to note: Big, easy answers aren\u2019t nearly as persuasive as the underlying logic of place.<\/div>\n
\nSan Francisco on a deal seemingly
\ntoo good to be true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":4895,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"featured_image_focal_point":[],"legacy_WP_ID":null},"tags":[111,105,112],"metro_tax_domain":[],"metro_tax_topic":[16],"metro_tax_program":[],"metro_issue":[],"internal_flag":[],"class_list":["post-56763","metro_project","type-metro_project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-san-francisco","metro_tax_topic-cities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n