Photo by Kevin H. Souza of Sydney Kahn House, Richard Neutra, architect.

This two-hour tour transforms Montgomery Street and Telegraph Hill into a hands-on exploration of how the conditions of modernity have shaped San Francisco since the late nineteenth century. These conditions include finance, mass media, real estate speculation, surveillance, automobiles, and all types of risk, from financial to natural. 

You will learn to distinguish between modernity and modernism, which refers to the artistic and architectural expressions that respond to the conditions of modernity. 

On this tour, architecture, painting, sculpture, and film tell the story of how Thoroughly Modern Montgomery Street is shaped. You will see how steel-frame towers, glass curtain walls, POPOS, noir films, and social-realist murals reveal the bigger systems at work in our city. By the end of the walk, you will see downtown San Francisco as a place shaped by modernity and reflected by modernism. You will see how modernist styles both celebrate progress, like light, speed, and order, and question its mental, environmental, and social costs.

The tour begins at the One Post Street Plaza and travels up Montgomery Street to Coit Tower. The tour will formally close at the end of Montgomery Street below the Filbert Steps. Participants will receive a handout to interpret the social-realism murals at Coit Tower. 

When: Saturday, July 25, 2026 / 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Where: One Post Plaza, San Francisco, CA
Tickets on Sale: Docomomo-US/NOCA Members - June 25, 2026 / Non-Members July 2, 2026
Ticket Prices: $20 Docomomo-US/NOCA Members with Promo Code / $30 Non-Members

DOCOMOMO US/NOCA MEMBER PROMO CODE:

Docomomo-US members can unlock the member ticket price or the annual 2-ticket free passes by entering our Members Ticket Portal password into the Access Code field on Eventbrite. On Eventbrite, click GET TICKETS and enter the portal password as your access code. If you don’t remember the Ticket Portal password, contact us at info@docomomo-noca.org.