While the lion is the king of the beasts, the eagle has that status in the realm of birds. This majestic bird’s power to fly to great heights was believed to give it godly vision. As Zeus’s bird, it was assumed to be at home with thunder and lightening, war and power. The choice of the native bald eagle as the country’s national symbol connected the government to the sources of western civilization in the ancient Greco-Roman world.

Regardless of their standing as the prime bird, eagles have not escaped the effects of changing styles. When associated with Classical buildings they are realistic, but when joined to the Moderne style popular in the 1920s through 1930s their form has a more two dimensional linear quality as shown above in this example over the 12th Street entrance to the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland.

Even when stationary, eagles are never at rest; they stand with their mighty wings half or fully unfurled, ever poised for flight. The impressive birds shown above are two of a row that watches over the area surrounding the former Federal Reserve Bank building at 400 Sansome Street.

The phoenix, a mythical bird similar to the eagle, has some features of the pheasant. Legend has it that when the phoenix sensed the approach of death, it made a nest for itself of scented resinous wood which it exposed it to the full rays of the sun so that both bird and nest were consumed by fire. This act of self immolation produced another phoenix born of the marrow in the charred bones.

As a symbol of renewal, the phoenix has existed in many cultures. For the Aztecs, Mayans, and Toltecs, the phoenix was called the quetzal; for the Chinese, it was the fenghuang, the emperor of birds, which was also associated with that other imperial symbol, the dragon. The Egyptian phoenix, the bennu, was related to the sun god Ra. Still a useful in more modern times, the phoenix was adopted by San Francisco after the destruction of much of the city by the 1906 earthquake and fire.

In the elegant oval frame shown above, the phoenix rises from the ashes with a flowering branch in its beak. The scene is located below the  lion and a unicorn, shown previously, on the former Royal Globe Insurance Company building.

Perched on a tiny ledge of the building at 1524 Bush Street is a a pink knobby-kneed phoenix, an altogether unflattering representation, with Its wings flattened against the wall as if to keep it from falling. It bends over, holding a ring in its beak, which may once have been a link in the chain attached to a sign now gone.

If the eagle was bathed with sunlight, the owl appeared when the sun vanished; it dwelled in the darkness of the underworld. Athena was often accompanied by an owl, and sometimes she was depicted with owl eyes, which suggests that an earlier version of this venerable goddess may have been shaped like an owl. In any case, wisdom was an attribute of the owl, as it was of Athena/Minerva.

In general, birds symbolized the celestial world, home to the winged angels. Humans with wings were considered celestial because they were capable of becoming airborne like Hermes/Mercury, which made them superhuman if not always angelic. Wings also suggested speed as advertised by this winged wheel on a building at 1355 Fulton Street, which may have sold or produced vehicles.

The dolphin, like the anchor which often accompanies it, is a symbol of salvation, a sea creature friendly to humans and a savior of the shipwrecked. Dolphins are favorite symbols of maritime enterprises and seaport cities. The speedy dolphins are sometimes entwined with an anchor to suggest prudence or hastiness held in check.

Seals are long time inhabitants of the rocky offshore islands in the Pacific Ocean. Two are shown above flanking a framed representation of a clipper ship. The ship and the small lighthouse inserted in the frieze below conveyed the nature of Hippolyte Audiffred’s San Francisco trading company, established on what was then the city’s waterfront in the mid-19^th century, but now located at 1-21 Mission Street. The elaborate vegetation that appears to be engulfing the seals may represent seaweed, or its creator may just have copied it from a manual of friezes. Many such motifs were not created by their makers but taken from ancient sources and published in books sold to designers and architects.

The single seal by the entrance to the building at 700 Mason Street holds a shield that was likely meant to identify the company that originally occupied the building.

The walrus head, relocated to a wall on the 100 block of Halleck Street, was one of a row of such heads that adorned the Alaska Building, demolished in the 1970s. Appropriately, he has a halo of rope and a long-suffering expression.

This article is not intended to be another learned history of architectural ornament. Its purpose is to provide a context for increasing our appreciation of the buildings that furnish out urban environment.

The text is divided into the following chapters:

1. HUMAN FORMS,
2. ANIMAL and BIRD FORMS,
3. HERALDRY and EMBLEMS,
4. PLANT FORMS, and the most decorated features of buildings:
5. ROOFS, COLUMNS, WINDOWS and DOORS.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Comments

1. Himanshu Burte says:

   September 22, 2011 at 7:18 am

   The city as a natural history amuseum! Great, Sally!
2. Judith Dunham says:

   September 26, 2011 at 7:06 pm

   As wonderful as the first installment. I now want to grab my binoculars and hit the streets to see all the architectural wildlife.
3. Elizabeth Meyer says:

   October 3, 2011 at 10:02 pm

   Another great installment. I love the walrus with the long-suffering expression. Ha! The stories he could tell. Thanks for these reminders to keep heads up and eyes open for hidden visual treasures.
4. Dan Gregory says:

   October 5, 2011 at 8:45 am

   Marvelous! From knobby-kneed phoenixes to unicorns with crowns around their necks — these revelations about architectural symbolism show what architecture is missing today! Fascinating to learn that PG & E used a Sierra bighorn sheep as its ram — so appropriate for a power source that included Hetch Hetchy in the Sierra. But why porpoises, I mean dolphins, on the post office?