The SF Masonic Auditorium (originally the Grand Masonic Auditorium and formerly known as the Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium) is a building and auditorium located atop

Nob Hill Nob Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States that is known for its numerous luxury hotels and historic mansions. Nob Hill has historically served as a center of San Francisco's upper class. Nob Hill is among the highe ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The building was designed by Bay Area architect Albert Roller (1891-1981), and opened in 1958. It serves as the meeting venue for the Masons of California during their Annual Communication, as well as being used as a concert venue the rest of the year (operated by

Live Nation Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American multinational Entertainment industry, entertainment company that was founded in 2010 following the Mergers and acquisitions, merger of Live Nation (events promoter), Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It ...

). The administrative offices of the

Grand Lodge of California The Grand Lodge of Free & Accepted Masons of California, commonly called the Grand Lodge of California, is one of the two Masonic Grand Lodges in the state recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England, the other being the Prince Hall Freemasonr ...

are contained in the upper floors, and the Henry Wilson Coil Library and Museum of Freemasonry is located on the mezzanine. The basement contains a five-level public parking garage.

History

Freemasonry Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

came to California just prior to the

Gold Rush of 1849 The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the Uni ...

. By 1850, a Grand Lodge was constituted in Sacramento, to oversee the Lodges operating throughout the State at that time (primarily in port towns along the

Sacramento Delta Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

and gold mining towns in the

Sierra foothills Sierra Foothills is a vast American Viticultural Area (AVA) encompassing portions of seven of the twelve California counties in the foothill "belt" of the Sierra Nevadas in north-central California, an interior range that extends about in a nor ...

). Construction began in 1861 for a new Grand Lodge building in San Francisco at the corner of Post and Montgomery Streets. It was completed in 1863 and destroyed in the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

. The architectural firm of Bliss & Faville designed a new building for the Grand Lodge of California at 25 Van Ness Avenue which was completed in 1913 and occupied by them until 1958 when it relocated to the new building at 1111 California Street. The 25 Van Ness building is currently used by the Rent Board of San Francisco, but evidence of its Masonic history survives in the façade, lobby and other areas that bear Masonic motifs.

Features

On the main (north) façade, there is a large

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

Emile Norman Emile Norman (April 22, 1918 ‒ September 24, 2009), born Emil Nomann, was an American artist, widely known for his sculptures, mosaics, panels, and jewelry He was the subject of the 2006 PBS documentary, ''Emile Norman: By His Own Design.'' B ...

bearing the inscription "''Dedicated to our Masonic Brethren who died in the cause of freedom''", depicting stylized servicemen from each of the four branches of the Armed Services, and a global

tug of war Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport in which two teams compete by pulling on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal of bringing the rope a certain distance in one direction against ...

representing global struggles. Inside the lobby is a huge

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

window likewise designed by

. The window depicts a variety of natural and

Masonic Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

themes. It contains

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

and

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...

from each of the 58 counties in California.

References

External links

Building History

California Masonic History

{{Authority control Masonic buildings completed in 1958 Buildings and structures in San Francisco Masonic buildings in California Music venues in San Francisco Nob Hill, San Francisco

History

Features

See also

References

External links