Thom Mayne's inspiration

The new San Francisco Federal Building, designed by Morphosis starchitect Thom Mayne, opened earlier this year. It's visible from the windows of our kitchen at work, so I see it at least five times a day, every time I make myself a decaf double americano. And I knew it looked familiar. Today I finally figured it out. The building: And what must have been the inspiration: (Oh, come on. It's the Sandcrawler from Star Wars. The nerds got it.)

1 minute read

April 24, 2007, 3:00 PM PDT

By Anonymous


The new San Francisco Federal Building, designed by Morphosis starchitect Thom Mayne, opened earlier this year. It's visible from the windows of our kitchen at work, so I see it at least five times a day, every time I make myself a decaf double americano. And I knew it looked familiar. Today I finally figured it out.

The building:

And what must have been the inspiration:

(Oh, come on. It's the Sandcrawler from Star Wars. The nerds got it.)

By the way: don't click the link to the jump page. Nothing there to read.

Here are more words that I am writing, that you should ignore. For some reason our kooky blog software won't let me post anything shorter than 100 words. Which goes a long way toward explaining why I'm still here, typing.


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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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