Built in 1901, the Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse was the home of San Francisco’s first electric railway. The historic landmark serves as one of the last physical reminders of the system. In 2009, an effort began to adaptively reuse the building as a community cultural and education center providing training for underprivileged youth in arts-related fields. The Car Barn will house classroom spaces, a black box theater, and a restaurant. The 3,400-square-foot Powerhouse adds an event and performance space. Finished in the summer of 2020, it completes the project’s first phase.

The building’s decay and lack of seismic stability required the rehabilitation touch every surface. All brick surfaces required lead abatement, completed with a wire brush and sealed to preserve visible layers of history. Plaster surfaces were repaired sparingly using a subtly different color to distinguish old from new. Structural concrete walls were cast as board formed in a similar patterning as the original concrete ceiling. Years of graffiti were retained, commemorating the building’s recent history and its past.

In adaptive reusing the Powerhouse as an arts event space, the design highlights layers of history while deftly inserting new program elements into the historic shell. New steel and glass entry portals frame the existing openings, held away so the existing wood door frame reads while extending outward to display new signage. A plywood form is the green room, its central location creates a pre-function foyer and forms a theatre backdrop. Structural glazed floors enclose the existing openings where turbine engines generated streetcar power, creating vitrines where artifacts will be displayed.

Throughout the space, there is an interplay of new and old that enlivens the reading of each. The end result is a historic building that has been given new life to serve the community while honoring its past.

Photography: Matthew Millman Photographer