Lawrence Halprin

United Nations Plaza
1962-75 • SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Christina Dikas
2016
C-print
24 x 16 inches
At the mid-point of the three-mile-long Market Street that traverses the city, United Nations
Plaza acts as the gateway to San Francisco’s City Hall. Surrounded by the city’s cultural district,
including theaters, museums, and civic buildings, the site was conceived as Civic Center Plaza.
The 2.5-acre pedestrian space was completed in 1975, with architects Mario Ciampi and John
Carl Warnecke, and immediately renamed United National Plaza to commemorate the signing of
the 1945 Charter of the United Nations at the nearby Veterans War Memorial Building. A portion
of Fulton Street was closed to vehicular traffic, and a wide pedestrian allée was installed that
terminates at City Hall. The other end of the allée features an asymmetrical red brick plaza with a
sunken sculptural fountain.
In his design, Halprin experimented with a concept he called “motation,” a method for scoring
how perception of environment changes depending on the speed and motion of the observer.
DESIGN TEAM
Don Carter (principal-in-charge)
Angela Danadjieva (landscape architect)
Mario Ciampi and John Carl Warnecke (architects)
42 The Cultural Landscape Foundation
www.tclf.org 43