FIELD TOURS/MOBILE WORKSHOPS

Tour 1

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In the city of San Francisco, two Spanish Colonial era adobe structures provide a vantage from which to explore how some buildings endure centuries of development in spite of the surrounding change and some adapt to that change and survive because of it. The first building is Mission San Francisco de Asis, commonly known as Mission Dolores. Construction was completed in 1791. After the installation of the final baroque altar side pieces in 1810, little else has changed. Mission Dolores is the oldest intact building in San Francisco and the oldest mission chapel of the original 21 chapels. In contrast, the tour also will visit El Presidio de San Francisco, an unassuming adobe structure in the Presidio known as the Officers' Club. The construction date of the original adobe structure is still unconfirmed. The original adobe walls remain standing below layer upon layer of US Army adaptive re-use - from Officers' Quarters, Laundresses Quarters, Army Headquarters, Officers' Club to its current use as National Park Service Visitor Center and events venue. Portions of the adobe walls have been uncovered on the interior of the Mesa Room and present a unique opportunity to view one of the first structures in the Presidio. Participants will take private transportation to the sites where they will be given special tours of the buildings.

Tour 2

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Ethnic and Sexual Minority Issues: Japantown and the Castro District
(Capacity: 40 people)

Led by
Gerald Takano, Architect, TBA West

While the city of San Francisco prides itself with diverse and stable communities, many of its distinctively unique neighborhoods are facing new transitions and drastic changes. These places reflect a current need to balance economic and social success with the preservation of its primary identify, shared spaces, landmarks, and setting. Two communities will be explored: Japantown and the Castro District.

This walking tour will begin in San Francisco's "J-town." one of the three surviving Japantowns in the US. Although the neighborhood has endure forced internment of its residents during World War II and the demolition of its buildings from urban Renewal of the 1960s, the area's cultural and social base still exists. However, changes in land ownership and uses, high land values, and other concerns may impact the integrity of the community. Participants will visit historical sites such as the Kinmon Gakuen, a processing center for persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II, the Julia Morgan designed Little Friends Building, site of a major legal battle to retain community ownership, as well as the modernist idealism of Urban Renewal's malls and large complexes.

The tour will continue to the Castro District, a former working class Italian neighborhood that has become the international center and symbol for the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender (GLBT) community since the 1970s. Locations such as the original Harvey Milk camera shop (first openly gay supervisor of San Francisco), site of the AIDS Quilt origins, the Castro Theater, public art, and GLBT shops and creative places will be addressed.

Both Japantown and the Castro provide a basis for comparative analysis of neighborhoods that were once stigmatized historically, but have since prospered and now face new contemporary cultural preservation issues. Participants will take private transportation to neighborhoods where they will be given walking tours.

Tour 3

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Led by
Daniel Quan, Daniel Quan Design and
Greg Jennings, California State Parks

Sponsored by the
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and the
California State Parks Marin District, Angel Island State Park

Alcatraz may be the most recognized island in San Francisco Bay, but another is equally rich in history. Angel Island, located just off the Marin County coast, has a rich human history that is thousands of years old. Valued as a hunting and fishing site by Native Americans, then as ranchland by Spanish colonists, it was also a strategic part of the coastal defense system from the Civil War through the Cold War. Angel Island was also the site of the primary Pacific Coast immigration station during the first half of the 20th century. Today it is a California State Park that is open to the public year-round.

Join us on a tour of Angel Island where we visit different military sites around the island and then explore the former US immigration station. There are over 400 military structures on the island dating back over 150 years, and a cultural landscape that covers much of the island. We will examine feature structures and sites on our tour, and the go "behind the scenes" for a non-public look as well. Hear about the military history of the island and the challenge of dealing with as many buildings as are on this island.

Our other major stop is at the immigration station, where we will show you the progress of the current Phase 1 restoration work, part of the major effort to restore and interpret this site. We will discuss the tangible and intangible values and attributes of this National Historic Landmark and discuss how elements of the master plan have been implemented.

Angel Island is reached by ferry from either San Francisco or Tiburon in Marin County. The ferry ride on the bay offers spectacular views.

Tour 4

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Led by
Dewey Livingston, Historian and author of "Point Reyes Peninsula"
Bob Berner, Executive Director of Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT)
Sally and Mike Gale, owners, Chileno Valley Ranch
Gordon White, Chief of Cultural Resources, Point Reyes National Seashore, and
Anne Murphy, owner, Home Ranch

Marin County, although known for its suburban and residential areas, is one of the Bay area's nine counties which also offers a perspective on the ranching and dairying rural areas of West Marin. This area has a long history of active ranching starting with the great ranchos in the 1830s when Marin was still part of Mexico and later when California became a state and the ranchos were subdivided into smaller ranches. Many of these ranches still flourish today largely because of the efforts of conservationists and progressive people who sought to stop development of the area. The Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) and the Point Reyes National Seashore offer two distinct systems that allow the continued operation of these historic and cultural landscapes and maintain the prevention of inappropriate development in the area.

Buses will bring participants to the Chileno Valley and Point Reyes area where they will have walking tours of both the Chileno Valley Ranch, a MALT member, and the Murphy Home Ranch, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore. Wear comfortable walking shoes appropriate for a rural setting and dress in layers. The weather in this area can be unpredictable.

Click here for more on the Marin Cultural Landscapes Tour >>
(including the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, Chileno Valley Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore, and Murphy Ranch (Home Ranch)

Tour 5

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Led by
John Martini, Historian and author of Fort Point: Sentry at the Golden Gate'; Fortress Alcatraz; The Official Guide to the Presidio of San Francisco; and Alcatraz at War

The seacoast fortifications of Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) are widely acknowledged to comprise the finest outdoor museum of coast defense structures in the United States.  They range in age from Fort Point (1861) to Nike Site SF88L (1954). Construction types include intricate brick casemates, extensive earthworks, massive solid-pour concrete, and reinforced concrete subterranean structures. As a group, these fortifications possess relatively high integrity; represent a unique spectrum of military engineering techniques used by the United States in its seacoast fortifications from the Civil War through the Cold War; and are associated with important historical developments of the nation as an evolving international military power. This bus tour will travel to many sites in San Francisco and over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin headlands.

Sites visited will include:

Fort Point - a classic mid-19th-century brick fort built to protect San Francisco Bay in the aftermath of the Gold Rush (includes spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge).

Fort Winfield Scott Batteries - a collection of 1890s concrete gun emplacements adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge toll plaza, representing some of the earliest cast-concrete fortifications built in the United States and having recently undergone extensive landscape clearing and other preservation work to protect their historic setting.

Cavallo Battery, Fort Baker - a 'transitional' 1870s battery built on the Marin shore near the Golden Gate Bridge, this is the best preserved example of an earthwork gun battery in the United States and has interesting architectural and construction features.

Battery Townsely, Fort Cronkite - constructed on the eve of World War II, Battery Townsley mounted two massive 16-inch caliber battleship guns in underground, camouflaged gun emplacements; the two guns were connected by a labyrinth of underground power rooms, living spaces, and ammunition magazines.

Nike Missile Site SF-88 - the only preserved Cold War-era missile site in the country; active from 1955 to 1974, this launch site once held up to a dozen nuclear-armed Nike-Hercules missiles; the battery has been restored to its appearance ca. 1962.

Mobile
Workshop
1
 

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Sponsored by CyArk 3D Heritage Archive, the Presidio Trust, and University of California at Berkeley

This one-day workshop will provide participants with hands-on training in high-definition documentation (HDD) for cultural heritage, with the intention of producing digital content that is also useful for public interpretation and tourism. Multiple technologies and methods will be shown and discussed, demonstrated and instructed, including panoramic photography, high-dynamic range photography (HDR), 3D laser scanning (HDS), and video and website management.

Who should attend and why

Participants interested in heritage management, documentation, cultural tourism, architecture and training will all benefit from this workshop. Participants will learn real-world techniques for creating rich media content that will appeal to the public and generate interest for their heritage sites. Many of the methods and principles introduced in this workshop are replicable with low-technological solutions and for a variety of budgets. No previous experience is necessary.

Workshop Plan

This workshop will take a holistic approach to comprehensive workflows that integrate best practices of standards in digital preservation with the diverse standards of practice for documenting cultural heritage sites. The aims of the workshop are to demystify some of the methods used in HDD and help the participants of the workshop identify useful techniques for heritage documentation. The participants will receive training in the use of these technologies as well as a better understanding about the kinds of final products these techniques can produce.

Perhaps most importantly, the workshop products will be used in a new UC Berkeley/Presidio course to be taught in Summer Session 2007 on site stewardship and management, as well as in the ongoing CyArk internship program. The intention is to help create content, recommendations and documentation that will benefit the Presidio Trust with their mission to protect and develop this important heritage site.

The workshop will begin in the Presidio Officer's Club with a presentation about the history of HDD and its relevance to heritage management, HABS standards and cultural tourism. After this introduction to HDD, the workshop will travel through the Presidio to Fort Scott and engage in hands-on documentation of the historic fort. Participants will learn how to record, process and manage HDD data to produce useful tools for both site management and heritage tourism.

For more information, please visit the following website:
http://cyark.berkeley.edu/2007/workshops

or contact Michael Ashley at mashley@berkeley.edu

Mobile
Workshop
2

All participants should meet at the Argonaut Hotel where staff/volunteers will direct them to the
F-line streetcar to the Ferry Building and the appropriate Ferry slip for transport to Mare Island/Vallejo

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For more information and to sign up for a focus group, visit the following website:
Historic Vallejo

On  California's vast, navigable inland waterways, protected by the Coastal Fortifications around the Golden Gate, lie the critical military and industrial operations that have long supported American interests around the Pacific Rim. Among these is the gigantic Mare Island Naval  Shipyard (MINSY), located on the Napa River Straits just across from the City of Vallejo. Acquired in 1852 just after California became a part of the United States, MINSY began operations in 1854 to create a strong Pacific Fleet and repair commercial maritime shipping vessels. Over the past 150 years, the  City of Vallejo became increasingly dependent on the shipyard because of the largely civilian workforce, which grew to over 40,000 people during World War II.

When the shipyard was closed in 1996, the regional economy was seriously affected. Efforts to restart Vallejo's economic engine focused primarily on restoring heavy industrial jobs using redevelopment strategies that rely on demolition and new construction. Despite Vallejo's prime geographic location, many positive attributes, and Mare Island's historic significance, its image as a gritty, navy town has limited investment and vision. The Vallejo and Mare Island Workshop is an opportunity to raise consciousness about Mare Island's global importance and help inform new economic strategies for the City of Vallejo based on heritage tourism that will build a new image and a strong economy.

This mobile workshop will include four tracks:

The NAD Regional Park: Using a Cultural Landscape Approach to Inform Park Planning

Heritage Tourism: Developing a New Economic Strategy

Adaptive Reuse of the Mare Island Naval Hosptial, and

Vallejo: Breathing Life Back into the Historic Downtown