What is the traditional function of a ferry building and what is its relation to the city? A ferry building marks a transition from land to water, from city to nature, and from that which is ordered to that which is unpredictable. From the water, a ferry building is a gateway to the city and a vessel for the city’s identity (a static identity?). For the commuter, a ferry building is a space of coming and going, responding to the needs of a body constantly on the move. For the tourist it is a site to apprehend the city, and currently in San Francisco, a place literally to consume the city.
Twenty minutes separate the space between Alameda and San Francisco. A ferry terminal on either end will provide the function of getting you from one side to the other, yet the treatment of the water edge is vastly different between the two sides of the Bay. On the San Francisco end you encounter a built-up city edge and a street grid, and on the Alameda end you are confronted with a decomposing water edge and a vast, undeveloped open space. The informality of the latter is a rich source of latent potentials and contradictions. One contradiction is the screening of an extreme formality—a military formality, a need to straighten a channel and reclaim land for the purpose of ship building and repair. Navy aircraft carriers are still brought into the channel for repair. The irony is found in the finer grain; zooming in on the aerial image of the straight shoreline reveals an edge of concrete rubble and landfill. The edge is slowly disappearing into the water.
What is the appropriate operation to extend a new ferry terminal out from this unstable water edge? The answer may be found by contrasting Alameda’s terminal with her sister across the Bay. The traditional ferry building is a place of orientation, a fountainhead of the city, and a common ground upon which anyone may find belonging. The Ferry Building of San Francisco desired to embody these ideals through a formal manifestation of material:
The ferryboat passengers’ experience began by first catching a glimpse of the tower, then by approaching closer until the ferry glided into one of the “dolphin slips,” and finally by entering the Ferry Building on the street level where waiting and smoking rooms were found finished in kiln-dried Oregon pine with elegant steel trusses overhead. A grand stairway covered with pink marble led the departing passengers to the upper level promenade which ran the full length of the building and rose 42 feet high with clerestories overhead. This “nave” possessed a rhythmic series of arches made of buff colored pressed brick. (Charles Page. Union Depot & Ferry House: San Francisco 1978)
The memory of this space of the everyday, where tens of thousands of commuters once passed through, has been re-configured into a foodie paradise. You can buy rare mushrooms by the quarter-pound in a stall where gentlemen once smoked cigars while waiting for their ferry. Numerous cafes, food shops, and even cooking supply stores line the old arcade. Today’s ferry passengers do not need the building, unless they ran out of $20/lb cheese; their ferries depart from piers that are no longer integral to the building itself, and thus they can avoid the tourist trap.
However, it is this anachronism, that of an almost recreational or touristic food experience alongside a daily commuter hub, that I wish to amplify for the Alameda design. People will come early on their commute for the joy of drinking coffee by the water, or linger at the end of the day for a beer or glass of wine, people-watching as passengers disembark. Kayakers will launch onto the water with the ferry boats cruising right by. The commuter might live vicariously through the kayaker. The space of the everyday and of recreation are conflated into a single performative surface, an island upon the Bay. The formal arcade is replaced by the limitless geometry of the pontoon which supports the island. At its ideal end, the island is infinitely extendable, an operation freely permitted by the user, who inflates or deflates the pontoons at will.
If the San Francisco Ferry Building is Nick-at-Nite-Urbanism, the Alameda terminal is You-Tuburbanism. Maybe you want to watch Nick-at-Nite anyway, but at least you have a choice.
4 comments:
The idea for the proposal is exciting, the ferry building has been a great success, and even if it does have the tourist trap label - as does much of San Francisco - it can still be a great place to spend time. I also think the contrast is correct, Alameda has a much more gritty feel, and I wonder how you can capitalize on that site specifically.
However, I wonder about the idea of an 'island' if that is the proposal. With the amount of existing space, is there a need for more? What does this mean in terms of economy and currency? By this I mean there is a great deal of 'territory' to be 'irrigated with potential', and that existing territory might provide clues as to what it should be or what it wants to be.
I think people should live on the land, and play on the water. You have a good point, there is a lot of territory there. I'm still drawn to the idea of challenging that water edge. If I had the full reigns of the territory, I'd build housing along the water edge and allow for multiple extensions into the water, for the ferry terminal, cafes, recreation, etc. Make the channel into a street.
Is the water edge literally decaying, or is it just a "rough" edge? It seems that it might actually be relatively stable, at least as far as the Corps of Engineers is concerned. It is certainly undesigned, and so the impulse to address the edge seems appropriate. Is the pontoon approach a rejection of the edge altogether? By stepping beyond onto a temporary platform, it seems like you are acknowledging the edge without addressing it. I appreciate the desire to occupy the space beyond the edge, and to gain a new and changing view of the city. But, like you say, what about the edge itself? Would there be a way to stage the "island" experience without just stepping over the edge on a bridge, but by first inhabitting it and seeing it up close, as your photo montage suggests?
good point John, it is about the edge, not just to be on one side or the other. activities should span the edge and engage in it. that's why I like the image of the broken walkway that drops into the water. the project is not about the island so much as getting to the island from the land, and vice versa.
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