Who is San Francisco Built For?

Ever thought about what San Francisco used to look like? For the next month, it’s as easy as taking a trip to your local public library. Pieces of a model of the city built in 1938 are on display at branch libraries across the city thanks to Take Part, a collaborative exhibit from Public Knowledge and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Locals are gathering to have conversations about how the city is changing, and for whom.

Public Knowledge, the education arm of the museum, commissioned Dutch artists Bik van der Pol to create an exhibit that would get San Franciscans to think about the changes they see every day: the condos that stretch from Mission Bay to the Embarcadero; the shops selling four-dollar coffee line Valencia Street. The artists thought the old model of the city would be the perfect tool to spark conversations and revisit the history of transformation that has shaped the city for decades.