This piece of Model Art™ was presented as a gift to the owner of 55 Stockton from his employees.  Our intention was produce a piece that was symbolic of his success and would be cherished and valued as fine art for generations.

This building is located just outside of Union Square in San Francisco.  Currently, it is the flagship store for Crate & Barrel and home of the FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.)  Heller Manus won an award for the most innovative use of precast in the 1980s.  Their use of this material created a lot of movement in the facade, thus lending itself to a layered approach in the construction of the scale model and making it a perfect subject for Model Art™.

This interesting textural model was made from exotic woods and gold-plated brass.  The golden roofs, window mullions, and signage were made of 50 separate etched-brass parts, soldered, and plated with 24-karat gold.  The glass was represented with Katalox.  The woods were individually selected in order to show the proper color differences between them.  The texture of the grain at this scale was also of great importance in producing the model.  We used quartersawn Hard Maple for the outer precast layer and Pink Ivory for the inner precast panels.  The model artist chose Bolivian Rosewood for the frame and Brown Mallee Burl for the roads and flat roof, purely for decorative interest.  We were fortunate to be able to include a piece of American history: Spalted Sugar Maple for the sidewalks and decks.  This particular piece of wood came from a tree planted in the early 19th century at the estate of Andrew Jackson.  It was among hundreds blown down by a tornado near Nashville in the 1990s.