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I am driving north up Dolores Street in San Francisco, looking for the basilica of the mission that gives the street its name. Some 10 years ago I visited this church in accidental conjunction with a visit to the old mission. I vividly recall entering through a side door, from a narrow courtyard that connects the mission with the basilica, and arriving unexpectedly into a serene space. It was domed and vaulted, both spacious and embracing. The profound peace induced by the interior during that visit is the reason I've returned, to learn more about my feeling and the space that elicited it. I want to explore the building and to record my reactions as I go, to demonstrate one process of encountering architecture and becoming alive to its emotional meanings.
When I see the church emerging ahead through the palm trees, I think I must have misremembered it. The tall spires, pitched gable roof, and sharp edges don't seem to belong to the interior that I remember. I hadn't noticed the outside of the church, but over the years I've imagined it as a collection of domes and barrels, reflecting the female roundness of the inside. Actually, I've pictured Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The exterior in front of me is male, not so much from any phallic presence in the spires as from a certain broad-shouldered aggressiveness in the square-sectioned towers from which the spires rise. The spires themselves are encrusted with lacy decorative carving, which also spills down the façade between the towers, and over the vestibule that extends toward the street. The decoration doesn't make the façade feminine, but rather seems to be a cosmetic frill, like the lace at the collar of an armored soldier in a Velazquez painting.
After parking, I walk back to the church. The neighborhood carries an air of