San Francisco's planning department has a document that explains how it reads the city's modern buildings from 1935 to 1970: the San Francisco Modern Architecture and Landscape Design 1935–1970 Historic Context Statement. It defines the modern styles built in those years, lists the features that mark each one, and sets out how a building is judged. If you own a modern house in San Francisco and plan to change it, this is the framework a preservation planner may use to look at your project.
What the context statement is
The department's case report brought it before the Historic Preservation Commission at a February 2, 2011 hearing, recommending adoption, and SF Planning's list of historic context statements shows it as adopted in 2011. The case report says it was written "to provide the framework for consistent, informed evaluations" of modern buildings and landscapes, and the statement says it is "tailored for use by individual property owners" for project review.
It is not a survey and doesn't say whether your house is historic. It names key buildings and designers and gives the rules for judging the rest.
Why 1935 to 1970
The statement chose those years because, it says, they best show how modern design developed and peaked in San Francisco. It points to mid-1930s events: the first of Richard Neutra's San Francisco buildings in 1935, the Federal Housing Administration's "Modernize Main Street" campaign, and, by 1937, Henry Doelger's use of Streamline Moderne in his tracts.
Its focus is architectural, not cultural: it gives evaluation frameworks only for buildings designed in a modern style.
The seven styles it defines
Chapter 8 sets out an "evaluative framework" for each of seven styles, with its period, character-defining features, architects and builders, and the criteria and integrity thresholds for each property type. The periods are:
Streamline Moderne: 1935–1950
International Style: 1935–1965
Second Bay Tradition: 1937–c.1964
Midcentury Modern: 1945–1965
"Miesian" International Style / Corporate Modern: 1950–1975
Brutalism: 1960–1970
Contractor Modern: built 1935–1970, which the statement says is not architecturally significant
The statement warns that some buildings fit more than one style, and that each building must be evaluated case by case.
Streamline Moderne
The statement describes Streamline Moderne as an expression of the speed and sleekness of the Machine Age. Its primary features include rounded corners and curved surfaces, "speed lines" of horizontal piping, porthole and wraparound corner windows, a flat roof with coping, and smooth stucco or concrete walls, often painted white.
The statement finds it most often in late-1930s and 1940s tract houses in the Sunset, Excelsior, Cayuga Terrace, Laurel Heights, Glen Park and Anza Vista, mixed with revival styles.
For individual listing, a house would typically need to be a "notable, full expression" of the style, not a restrained version with a few features, and keep integrity of design, feeling and materials. Windows count most: the statement names reconfigured window openings as a common alteration that would exclude a property.
International Style
The statement calls International Style houses "extremely rare" in San Francisco: custom houses built from 1935 to 1950, often as in-fill, with known examples in Pacific Heights, Twin Peaks, Telegraph Hill and the Marina, and not offered as a façade option in developer tracts. Its features include ribbon and corner windows, cantilevered planes, walls of glass, flat roofs, simple cubic forms and minimal ornament. The statement dates the style's local start to a 1935 Richard Neutra house and says he designed five buildings in the city from 1935 to 1939.
Second Bay Tradition
This regional style developed in the Bay Area in the late 1930s. The statement says it fused the woodsy, hand-crafted look of the First Bay Tradition with the cubic forms of European modernism. Its period starts in 1937 with houses by Gardner Dailey, William Wurster and John Dinwiddie and runs to about 1964.
Its listed features include a plain, vernacular look; small scale; wood shingle, redwood or board-and-batten siding; flat or gently pitched roofs; overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails; post-and-beam construction; large glass areas; and private modern gardens by landscape architects.
The statement associates the style with custom architects rather than builder tracts, with Joseph Eichler's architect-designed developments as the notable exception. Examples cluster in Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, Presidio Heights, Forest Hill and Twin Peaks, and the statement's conservative estimate is fewer than 150 single-family houses in the style in the city.
Cladding matters most here. The statement says re-cladding in stucco might exclude a property, and that enclosing original balconies and reconfiguring windows can add up to the same result. Lower thresholds apply to houses built before the end of World War II and to work by master architects or firms.
Midcentury Modern
The statement calls Midcentury Modern the most common modern style built in San Francisco from 1945 to 1965. Its features include projecting eaves, cantilevered overhangs, flat, shed or low-pitched gable roofs, stucco or vertical wood siding, stacked Roman brick accents, canted windows, projecting boxes that frame upper floors, and atrium or courtyard entries.
It names Clarendon Heights, Diamond Heights, Midtown Terrace, Lakeshore Park, Twin Peaks and eastern Bernal Heights as concentrations. Diamond Heights is where Claude Oakland designed layouts for Joseph Eichler in the early 1960s; see our Diamond Heights Eichler history.
This framework matters to tract owners. A house that qualifies for individual listing would typically be a "notable, full expression" of the style. The modern façade option in many 1950s tracts, with a few motifs such as canted overhangs, typically doesn't meet that bar, and buildings with only a few features are often better classed as Contractor Modern. The statement's field work found that corner buildings in 1950s tracts showed the full style more often than mid-block ones.
Entries, windows and roof forms carry the most weight. Replacing the front door or window sash would not by itself rule a building out, the statement says, while reconfigured window openings or "inappropriate vertical additions" may. It names Diamond Heights and Laurel Heights among possible historic districts.
Corporate Modern, Brutalism and Contractor Modern
The Corporate Modern framework covers corporate offices and high-rises, and Brutalism covers 1960s buildings the statement describes as massive in scale and built of reinforced concrete.
Contractor Modern is the statement's term for buildings that borrow modern design's lack of ornament mainly to build cheaply: simple boxes, stucco, and "reference to Modern design added as an afterthought." It includes the "Richmond Specials" built from the 1950s until 1972. The statement says these buildings are not eligible under the architecture criterion, alone or in a district, though one could qualify through an association with a significant event or person. It also cautions that tract buildings are not automatically Contractor Modern.
How a property is evaluated
The statement uses the four National Register criteria, which match the California Register's: A/1, events that shaped broad patterns of history; B/2, the lives of significant persons; C/3, distinctive design, the work of a master or high artistic values; and D/4, important information about history or prehistory. Because its theme is design, it focuses on C/3, with A/1 now and then.
Significance alone isn't enough. A property also needs integrity, which the statement defines as "the authenticity of physical characteristics" and breaks into seven aspects: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. For modern buildings, it says, design, materials, feeling and setting generally matter more than the other three.
A building can qualify on its own or as a contributor to a historic district. The statement notes that for buildings under 50 years old, the National Register requires "exceptional importance," while the California Register needs enough scholarly perspective.
What it means if you plan changes
The statement says the frameworks were written in part for planners to use in evaluating proposals to alter modern-style buildings.
The exterior is the focus. Except for public buildings and some publicly accessible private ones, such as theaters, the 2011 statement says the department does not typically have jurisdiction over interiors.
Know which features your style is judged on. Windows for Streamline Moderne; entries, windows and roof forms for Midcentury Modern; cladding for the Second Bay Tradition; windows, form and cladding for the International Style.
Replacement isn't reconfiguration. In the Midcentury Modern framework, a new front door or new sash would not rule a building out; changed window openings may.
Gardens sat mostly outside review in 2011. The statement said then that basic rear-yard landscaping needed no building permit, so keeping a designed garden's features was largely up to the owner.
Check today's rules. In 2011 the statement said automatic historic review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) applied in San Francisco to buildings over 50 years old and to buildings already identified as potential (Category B) or confirmed (Category A) historic resources. Those were the 2011 triggers, and procedures may have changed since, so ask SF Planning how your property is classified and what review applies today before you design.
The statement's last chapter says many of Claude Oakland's Diamond Heights houses for Eichler have suffered unsympathetic alterations, that changes to Eichler's Western Addition apartments include the "wholesale enclosing of open balconies" (see our Laguna Heights and The Summit guide), and that early houses by Dailey, Wurster and Henry Hill "have been altered nearly beyond recognition."
For how listing and review work across California, read Is My House Historic in California? For homes in the city, visit our San Francisco mid-century homes page.
Frequently asked questions
Does the context statement say my house is historic?
No. It is not a survey, and it says each building must be evaluated case by case.
Is the statement still current?
SF Planning's list of context statements shows it as adopted in 2011. The review triggers it describes date from then, so confirm today's procedures with SF Planning.
Does it name architects I can check?
Each framework lists architects and builders who worked in the style, and Chapter 9 has biographies. A name on those lists is a lead to check against permits and records, not proof that a house is theirs.
Related reading
Is My House Historic in California? Lists, Criteria and Review
Mid-Century Modern Design Principles: Overhangs, Orientation and Glass
Sunset District Builders Context Statement: A Guide for Owners
John Funk, Architect: Bay Region Modern Houses and How to Check One
More guides on this topic: Mid-Century Modern Architecture & Design
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Planning changes to a modern house in San Francisco? Call or text the Boyenga Team at Compass at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team to talk through your plans.
