In late 2012 San Francisco art dealer Brian Gross decided to relocate his gallery from Union Square, where he had been well-established for 23 years, to the once-industrial Potrero Hill district, which in recent years has been home to the city’s furniture showrooms.  In doing so he has been a forerunner in the creation of a new visual arts district for the city.  Gross contracted with KPa+d to convert the ground floor of a 1930’s steel-door factory to the new gallery for Brian Gross Fine Art, a sub-tenant gallery, shared public space and back-of-house facilities.  Unlike the office-building style galleries typical of the gallery’s previous location, the new space features exposed structure, expansive high ceilings and east-facing windows that capture ample natural light.

The new gallery for Brian Gross Fine Art is a clean, minimalist interior for showcasing a wide range contemporary painting, sculpture and works on paper.  Designed to maximize natural light and flexibility for exhibitions, the gallery and public spaces have generous circulation and service facilities for public events. New glass walls divide the respective galleries from the shared lobby, while glass garage doors replaced steel roll-up doors for light and air, at the same time retaining the function of receiving. Existing concrete walls were removed and new partitions were added to give the space a simple yet flexible geometry. Consolidated to the ceiling, electrical and mechanical services have been exposed in keeping with the concrete mushroom columns. Finally, an old, industrial, steel sliding door, once made in the building and now rescued, hangs in a place of honor on the wall at the entrance to the lobby.