1903
Merchants Exchange
Merchants Exchange
465 California Street
Architect: Willis Polk
The tallest building in the financial district at the time of the 1906 earthquake was the Merchants Exchange. This fifteen-story, steel-frame structure, with Tennessee granite and brick sheathing, was designed by Willis Polk in 1903; it traces its ancestry back to a three-story brick building of 1851 located about two blocks north on Battery Street. The original Merchant Exchange furnished a library and meeting room and posted information on arriving ships and cargoes. The latter-day skyscraper was intended to provide some of the same services to the business community.
The great hall of the Exchange, now modified as a bank office, is still decorated with some of the best and most appropriate San Franciscan murals - paintings executed by William Coulter, a leading maritime artist of his place and time. Other touches of period architectural art can be seen in the bronze eagle heads and lamps of the exterior, designed by Julia Morgan. Miss Morgan can also be credited with the inspiring interior appointments.
The days are gone when the merchants of San Francisco gathered there over one thousand strong to approve the plans for the 1915 Exposition or to condemn the 1934 general strike, and the Merchants Exchange is now just another building. But the great glass-roofed foyer and the adjacent meeting hall are reminiscent of that former era.
Click Here> for the official website of the Merchant Exchange
465 California Street
Architect: Willis Polk
The tallest building in the financial district at the time of the 1906 earthquake was the Merchants Exchange. This fifteen-story, steel-frame structure, with Tennessee granite and brick sheathing, was designed by Willis Polk in 1903; it traces its ancestry back to a three-story brick building of 1851 located about two blocks north on Battery Street. The original Merchant Exchange furnished a library and meeting room and posted information on arriving ships and cargoes. The latter-day skyscraper was intended to provide some of the same services to the business community.
The great hall of the Exchange, now modified as a bank office, is still decorated with some of the best and most appropriate San Franciscan murals - paintings executed by William Coulter, a leading maritime artist of his place and time. Other touches of period architectural art can be seen in the bronze eagle heads and lamps of the exterior, designed by Julia Morgan. Miss Morgan can also be credited with the inspiring interior appointments.
The days are gone when the merchants of San Francisco gathered there over one thousand strong to approve the plans for the 1915 Exposition or to condemn the 1934 general strike, and the Merchants Exchange is now just another building. But the great glass-roofed foyer and the adjacent meeting hall are reminiscent of that former era.
Click Here> for the official website of the Merchant Exchange