De-capitalizing San Francisco’s Waterfront through the Collective Memory of Resistance

Abstract

For over two centuries, San Francisco’s Waterfront has been a mechanism for capitalism, fostering an environment of economic “advancements” that harbours capital greed. As a line of exchange, the Waterfront is a capitalist district unto itself, creating a severance from the rest of San Francisco. Designated as a zone of trade and reinforced by infrastructural projects, land accumulation, and increasing tourism, the Waterfront is constituted as a crucial yet unprotected district of resistance and collective memory at the intersection between the past and future, and the forgotten and forsaken. This thesis investigates reclaiming San Francisco’s Waterfront through a series of kinetic interventions that abstract, layer, and choreograph an architectural event through the highlighting of memory, thereby creating alternate futures. By de-constructing and re- constructing collective memory, a processional engagement of community based activities will facilitate a means of de-capitalizing the Waterfront, reawakening the memories it holds.