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Rincon Annex
IMG 2185 Rincon Center San Francisco.JPG
Rincon Center in May 2006
Rincon Center is located in San Francisco County
Rincon Center
Location in San Francisco County
Rincon Center is located in California
Rincon Center
Location in California
Rincon Center is located in the United States
Rincon Center
Location in the United States
Location 101--199 Mission St., San Francisco, California
Area 1.9 acres (0.77 ha)
Built 1940
Built by George A. Fuller Construction Co.
Architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood
Architectural style Streamline Moderne
NRHP reference No. 79000537
Quick facts for kids
Significant dates
Added to NRHP November 16, 1979

Rincon Center is a complex of shops, restaurants, offices, and apartments in South of Market in Downtown San Francisco, California. It includes two buildings, one of which is the 1940 Rincon Annex former post office building, and comprises a city block near the Embarcadero, bounded by Mission, Howard, Spear, and Steuart Streets.

Rincon Annex

The original Rincon Annex building is a former post office, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood in the Streamline Moderne style and completed in 1940. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The exterior is decorated with stone relief friezes of dolphins above the doorways and windows.

Murals

The interior features the History of San Francisco mural series, comprising 27 tempera-on-gesso murals painted by the Russian immigrant artist Anton Refregier from 1941 to 1948 under the Section of Painting and Sculpture of the United States Department of the Treasury. The murals, in the social realism style, depict the history of California and San Francisco's role in it. As they were completed immediately following World War II, they generated fierce controversies. Refregier's detractors criticized his artistic style and questioned his political leanings. The controversy eventually reached the U.S. Congress, where critics called for the murals to be destroyed. The murals led to the preservation of the post office lobby as part of the Rincon Center development.

1980s expansion

In the 1980s the building was made available by the United States Postal Service for development acquisition, and was developed into a mixed-use center by a partnership headed by Perini Land & Development Company. The lead designer was Scott Johnson of Pereira Associates, the firm founded by William Pereira, designer of the Transamerica Pyramid. The complex was completed in 1988.

Rincon Center (aerial, 2018)
Aerial view of Rincon Center (2010)

The Rincon Annex building was topped with two new stories of offices and opened up to create a five-story atrium topped by a 200-foot (61 m) long skylight with a food court on the lower level. A new 23-story mixed-use building on the south side of the block contains a new post office, offices, and 320 apartments in twin towers rising from the commercial levels.

The Rain Cloud installation art work in the atrium was designed by the contemporary artist Doug Hollis and consisted of a continuous 85-foot (26 m) column of water drops falling from an eight-foot by eight-foot acrylic glass box at ceiling level perforated with 4,000 holes. It was removed in an early 2020s renovation that also removed an Art Deco-inspired frieze by Richard Haas on recent California history from the atrium and installed vegetated panels.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco City Guides led walking tours of the Rincon Annex murals.

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