Landslide Update: Embarcadero Plaza
Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin’s Modernist urban plaza on Market Street in downtown San Francisco, with its signature Vaillancourt Fountain, featuring an eye-catching agglomeration of angular square tubes, is threatened with demolition. On Tuesday, March 4, 2025, the city’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of a “Resolution authorizing the Recreation and Parks Department (RPD) to enter into an agreement with BXP Embarcadero Plaza LP (BXPE), the Downtown San Francisco Partnership, and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development regarding potential improvements and renovations at Embarcadero Plaza and Sue Bierman Park.” Halprin, a National Medal of Arts recipient who spent his six-decade-long career in the Bay Area, designed some of the city’s best-known and most beloved public spaces, including Ghirardelli Square and Levi’s Plaza. In addition, five of his landscapes have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 2010—though none in San Francisco. Previous efforts at a National Register listing for Embarcadero Plaza faltered, but now that the site is more than 50 years old (generally a necessary criteria), and these other National Register designations provide significant historic context to recognize the plaza as a work of a master, a renewed push is warranted for it to be designated individually (locally and nationally) and/or included in an expanded Port of San Francisco Embarcadero Historic District, particularly in light of the threatened demolition.
History
The creation of Embarcadero Plaza was part of a larger effort, recounted in the December 1962 report “What to do About Market Street,” that resulted from a meeting on “June 6 1962, [at which] several leading businessmen and property owners on Market Street met with officers of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association to discuss the future of Market Street, San Francisco's main thoroughfare. The meeting ended with agreement on three objectives: to transform Market Street into one of the world's most attractive boulevards; to rid Market Street of its shabby atmosphere; and to put new life into Market Street as a center of Bay Area business, shopping, and entertainment.” One outcome of the initiative was Embarcadero Plaza (originally called Justin Herman Plaza and named for M. Justin Herman, executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency from 1959 to 1971), which was designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and opened in 1972.
The Modernist plaza is located at Market Street’s eastern terminus and features an irregularly shaped expanse of red brick pavers, just off-axis from the street, and is reminiscent of Siena, Italy’s Piazza del Campo, Madrid, Spain’s Plaza Mayor square, and Mexico City, Mexico’s El Zócalo (officially known as Plaza de la Constitución). Described by Halprin as a “total environment in which all the elements working together create a place for participation,” he and artist Armand Vaillancourt created the 40-foot-tall fountain featuring a series of angular square tubes created in response to the Embarcadero Freeway, an elevated roadway that wrapped around the plaza.
As landscape historian and professor Alison Hirsch noted in City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America (University of Minnesota Press, 2014): “Water, stepping-stones, and stairs invite active participation in the dynamic structure Halprin called an ‘environmental event.’” Hirsch calls the fountain the “true anchoring event” of Market Street.
The Embarcadero Freeway was demolished after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, allowing the site to open up and become more porous, enabling redevelopment all along the Embarcadero. In the 1990s the plaza was adopted by San Francisco’s skateboarding community as the preeminent site for practicing stunts and shooting videos—a use Halprin had not intended but which purportedly amused him. In fact, a 1998 Landscape Architecture Magazine feature "A Good Thrashing," underscores the centrality of Embarcadero Plaza to skateboarding culture while insisting on the legitimacy of urban landscapes that facilitate this unique pastime. On November 16, 2017, the site was renamed Embarcadero Plaza.
In Landslide 2016: The Landscape of Lawrence Halprin, a report and corresponding traveling photographic exhibition that debuted at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. (and will be on view at The Exhibition Space @ ABC Stone in Brooklyn, N.Y. in summer 2025), the site’s condition was characterized as “beginning to falter.” Along with the demolition of the freeway, the report noted: “The plaza has also been restructured, with the geometric shallow steps that connect the sunken plaza to the street grade replaced by ramps and a circular stairway. ... [and] it does not seem that the city is considering Halprin’s design intent in [its maintenance] decisions.” Another Halprin-designed space on Market Street that’s included in the report, United Nations Plaza, which opened in 1975, was also listed as “beginning to falter.”
On July 20, 2024, the news outlet SFGATE published a feature story about the proposed demolition and redesign of Embarcadero Plaza and neighboring Sue Bierman Park. The project would be a $30 million public-private partnership with the real estate development firm BXP, which owns the four-block-long Embarcadero Center, a mixed-use development with four towers. The article gave a preview of the new design by the architecture firm HOK: “A vast, meandering grassy area with pathways and small plazas is part of the proposal to revamp the concrete expanse punctuated by the infamous brutalist Vaillancourt Fountain. New renderings of the area between the Ferry Plaza and Embarcadero Center show dazzling displays with a pathway passing through a sculpture garden, fairy lights strung between festival tents, food trucks and a series of connected lawns dotted with flowering trees, volleyball courts, people picnicking and an overall buzz of activity.” According to the article: “San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg told SFGATE...that a refreshed space would meet Mayor London Breed’s goal of finding ways to draw people to downtown San Francisco.”
Mayor Breed, who was elected in 2018, lost her reelection bid to Daniel Lurie; he was sworn in as the city’s 46th mayor on January 8, 2025. Nevertheless, according to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks website the Embarcadero Plaza project appears to be moving forward. On March 6, 2025, a community meeting was held at Embarcadero Center to solicit input about the park’s proposed demolition/redesign; however, the project survey makes no mention of rehabilitation as an option. In these meetings the public lamented the impoverished state of the Modernist landscape, as well as that of the waterless fountain, the result of both deferred maintenance and city practices regarding the years-long drought in California.
Of note, the plaza lies within the Port of San Francisco Embarcadero Historic District, which is listed under several categories of significance (namely, architecture and engineering), but the period of significance ends in 1946. Best practices would suggest that this nomination be updated and re-evaluated as it has been nineteen years since such an assessment and evaluation was undertaken.
Since 2010 five Halprin-designed landscapes have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places: Heritage Park Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas (2010); Park Central Square in Springfield, Missouri (2010); Portland Open Space Sequence, which includes four distinct parks and open spaces, in Portland, Oregon, (2013); Freeway Park in Seattle, Washington (2019); and Charlottesville Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia (2024). However, none of his San Francisco landscapes, which represent his greatest body of work in any American city, have been designated, despite Halprin having made San Francisco his adopted home. Instead, Halprin’s United Nations Plaza (which opened in 1975), less than two miles southwest of Embarcadero Plaza on Market Street, has seen some unsympathetic redevelopment since 2018 with more in the offing. Today Embarcadero Plaza faces a similar threat.
In 2020 the Better Market Street project completed a series of studies to assess the feasibility of redesigning the multi-modal corridor, and Embarcadero Plaza was found to lack sufficient integrity to be considered an individual resource. An Environmental Impact Report lists the plaza’s period of significance as 1870 to 1979, which includes Halprin and Vaillancourt’s design, and now that it is well over well over fifty years since its completion, TCLF believes that this work of a master landscape architect still possesses sufficient significant design integrity and is strongly in favor of a renewed National Register and San Francisco Landmark evaluations for Embarcadero Plaza.
When it comes to Embarcadero Plaza, the solution is not erasing its history—material and cultural—but in working with coalitions to preserve the character-defining aspects of place. One very strong constituency is the local skateboarding community, which has rallied to the cause and fashioned themselves as unofficial stewards of Embarcadero Plaza. Their change.org petition, organized by art historian/skateboarder Ted Barrow, who wrote the 2024 San Francisco Standard opinion piece "Embarcadero Plaza is a living shrine to skateboarding history — don’t desecrate it," has received more nearly 5,500 signatures.
Upon learning of the current proposals, James Garland, President, Founder, and Design Director at Los Angeles-based Fluidity Design Consultants, and author of the authoritative survey Fountain Safari, (ORO Editions, 2024),wrote to TCLF on March 14, 2025 in favor of protecting the plaza and fountain:
“Not all fountains are good or should be kept around, but this one is and should be. If the Vaillancourt Fountain is really being demolished I think it is a shame. It is a very great fountain, with admittedly challenging aesthetics that maybe are not widely appreciated. The water action is impressive. Robust at the urban scale. How many other fountains can say that? The scale of the concrete formations is also impressive. Their construction quality is quite artful, with geometric precision and fine, consistent finish quality. Their composition in space is asymmetrical, dynamic, and visually balanced—from all view angles… The Vaillancourt Fountain’s concept arose from the elevated freeway which used to be just behind it. The concrete forms were a very savvy response to the backdrop—nearly anything else would have looked naive or foolish. Then the earthquake took away the freeway—with no complaints. So, the fountain became a memento of the lost freeway. It therefore now carries a symbolism about bad urban design, and it does it in a triumphant way.”
One of Halprin's final published remarks appears in the book Lawrence Halprin's Skyline Park (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), about a project he designed in Denver, CO, that city officials and local business interests wanted to be radically altered. His comments end on a hopeful note:
I am extremely pleased that recently some cities, such as Portland, Oregon, when faced with similar problems, have been able to carefully navigate the fine line between careful modification and protection of the original design intent. In the future I believe that such thoughtful attention will become second nature when faced with such challenges. In that way, we can protect the special places that speak to our history and evolution.
Embarcadero Plaza is unique to and uniquely representative of San Francisco; it's an immediately recognizable icon that can be rehabilitated to address contemporary needs, while retaining the original design intent.
What you can do to help
Contact the following officials to advocate for the evaluation of Embarcadero Plaza as a potential candidate for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and as a San Francisco Landmark. Urge decision makers to heed Halprin's call for navigating "the fine line between careful modification and protection of the original design intent" and safeguarding "the special places that speak to our history and evolution." Note that a unique civic landmark and historic resource by a widely acknowledged master such as Embarcadero Plaza should be afforded best practices that prioritize its historic design legacy.
Supervisor Danny Sauter
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
City Hall, Room 244
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
T: (415) 554-7450
E: SauterStaff@sfgov.org
Mayor Daniel Lurie
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
City Hall, Room 200
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
T: (415) 554-6153
E: daniel.lurie@sfgov.org
Rich Hillis, Director, San Francisco Planning
49 South Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94103
T: (628) 652-7411
E: rich.hillis@sfgov.org
San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission
49 South Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94103
Individual Commissioners:
Diane Matsuda, President, Seat 7 At Large
E: diane.matsuda@sfgov.org
Ruchira Nageswaran, Vice President, Seat 1 Historic Architect
E: ruchira.nageswaran@sfgov.org
Hans Baldauf, Commissioner, Seat 2
E: hans.baldauf@sfgov.org
Dan Baroni, Commissioner, Seat 6 – Preservation Professional
E: dan.baroni@sfgov.org
Chris Foley, Commissioner, Seat 5, Preservation Professional
E: chris.foley@sfgov.org
Robert Vergara, Commissioner, Seat 4 Historian
E: robert.vergara1@sfgov.org
Jason Wright, Commissioner, Seat 3 Architectural Historian
E: jason.wright@sfgov.org
Stephen “Woody” LaBounty, President & CEO, San Francisco Heritage
2007 Franklin Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
T: (415) 441-3000
E: Wlabounty@sfheritage.org
Cindy Heitzman, Executive Director, California Preservation Foundation
P.O. Box 192203
San Francisco, CA 94119
T: (415) 495-0349
E: cheitzman@californiapreservation.org
Barrett Reiter, President, Docomomo U.S. Northern California
33 Topaz Way
San Francisco, CA 94131
E: admin@docomomo-noca.org
Liz Waytkus, Executive Director, Docomomo U.S.
P.O. Box 230977
New York, NY 10023
T: (203) 671-6609
E: liz.waytkus@docomomo-us.org