The Swedenborgian Church is a historic church complex at 2107 Lyon Street in the

Pacific Heights Pacific Heights is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It has panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, the Palace of Fine Arts, Alcatraz, and the Presidio. The Pacific Heights Residents Association defines the neig ...

neighborhood of

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Built in 1895 for a Swedenborgian congregation, it is considered one of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

's earliest pure Arts and Crafts buildings, with design contributions by A. C. Schweinfurth, A. Page Brown,

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

, William Keith, and

Bruce Porter Bruce Porter (23 February 1865, San Francisco – 25 November 1953, San Francisco) was an American painter, sculptor, stained-glass designer, writer, muralist, landscape designer, and art critic. Biography Porter was raised in the East Bay town ...

. It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 2004.

Architecture and building history

The Swedenborgian Church is located at the northwest corner of Lyon and Washington Streets in San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood, on a lot that has been leveled by fill held by a stuccoed retaining wall. The complex is basically rectangular, housing the church, parsonage, and parish house amid landscaped gardens. It is accessed by an arched portico, flanked by similar arched openings, which form a sort of portico in front of the sanctuary facing Lyon Street, covered by a tile roof. The sanctuary is a single-story structure, with a thick walls finished with a variety of colored and textured bricks. The gabled roof is supported by heavy timbers, which are exposed on the inside. The doors into the sanctuary are made of dark tongue-and-groove oak boards, and are fastened by hand-wrought iron hinges. The interior of the main sanctuary is dominated by massive timbers, mainly

madrone ''Arbutus'' is a genus of 12 accepted speciesAct. Bot. Mex no.99 Pátzcuaro abr. 2012.''Arbutus bicolor''/ref> of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae, native to warm temperate regions of the Mediterranean, western Europe, the Canary Islan ...

clad in Douglas fir wainscoting. The first pastor of the church was Rev. Joseph Worcester (May 20, 1836 - August 4, 1913), who bought the land and worked with the architects to design the church.Book review of Worcester's involvement
/ref> Contributions were made to the plans by A. C. Schweinfurth, A. Page Brown,

, William Keith, and

. The then-nascent Arts and Crafts movement was viewed by Worcester as harmonizing particularly well with Swedenborgian teachings about harmonizing man with nature. The church opened for worship March 17, 1895. It remains essentially the same as when it was built.

References

3. Building with Nature: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home (Gibbs Smith, Nov. 2005), Chapter 3 is devoted to the church.

External links

Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco web site
{{Authority control Swedenborgian churches in California Churches in San Francisco 19th-century Swedenborgian church buildings Churches completed in 1895 Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco National Historic Landmarks in the San Francisco Bay Area Bernard Maybeck buildings Arts and Crafts architecture in California American Craftsman architecture in California

Architecture and building history

See also

References

External links