The Matson Building is a historic office building located at 215 Market Street in

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 ...

Description and history

The building was constructed in 1922–1924 to serve as the headquarters of the

Matson Navigation Company Matson may refer to: * Matson (surname) * Matson, Gloucester, England, a suburb of Gloucester * Matson, Missouri, an unincorporated community * 2586 Matson, an asteroid * Matson, Inc., a shipping company, formerly Matson Navigation Company * Matson ...

, then the largest shipping and transportation company between the West Coast and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. In addition, the building held mainland offices for three of Hawaii's Big Five corporations and multiple smaller Hawaiian firms, making it a prominent fixture in San Francisco–Hawaii commerce. Architects Bliss & Faville designed the

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...

building. The sixteen-story building is divided into three sections; the lower and upper sections feature extensive ornamentation, giving the building a column-like appearance. The outside of the building is clad in

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

, which is also used for the building's decorative elements. In 1945–1947, a matching annex was placed on the building to provide more space for Matson's offices. . The building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on November 29, 1995.

References

Skyscraper office buildings in San Francisco Market Street (San Francisco) Office buildings completed in 1924 Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco Bliss and Faville buildings Renaissance Revival architecture in California {{SanFrancisco-NRHP-stub