Taschen - Book - San Francisco. Portrait of a City

Since the mid-19th century, San Francisco has attracted freethinkers, artists, dreamers and entrepreneurs. These 500 pages of captivating images taken from dozens of archives and collections show every nook and cranny of the city, from its earliest days to the present day.

Since a band of intrepid gold prospectors put this magnificent city on the map of Northern California, this ambitious, immersive photo history of San Francisco takes us on a hair-raising journey through the city from the mid-19th century to the present day.

Enjoy breathtaking views of the city's most iconic landmarks: the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, the picturesque trams that climb and descend its famous hills, the bustling waterfront, its sublime bay, and its spectacular panoramas of the city and its surroundings. The local counterculture that shaped our collective consciousness looms large here: the beatniks of North Beach, the hippies of Haight-Ashbury, the gay communities of the Castro, and the Black Panthers of neighboring Oakland. Some of its most prestigious residents are also featured: Robin Williams, the Grateful Dead, Angela Davis, Janis Joplin, Sylvester and Allen Ginsberg, among others.

This book features hundreds of newly discovered images from the archives of numerous museums, universities, libraries, galleries, private collections, and historical societies, from 19th-century daguerreotypes to mid-century Kodachromes to 21st-century digital photographs. These images are by master photographers, including Stephen Shore, Imogen Cunningham, Fred Lyon, Steve Schapiro, Minor White, Dorothea Lange, Albert Watson, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton, Fred Herzog, Ansel Adams, and Jim Marshall, as well as numerous local photographers. This imagery is accompanied by introductory essays and captions by Franciscan author Richie Unterberger, a selection of books, music, and films about San Francisco, and biographies of the photographers. Tony Bennett sang, “I left my heart in San Francisco.” This carefully composed and designed portrait will also inspire in you an eternal fondness for Frisco, the city on the bay.

Bound, 25 x 34 cm, 4.05 kg, 480 pages