The only San Francisco building listed in a recent survey of the world's greatest contemporary architecture was Stanley Saitowitz's iconic Yerba Buena Lofts in SoMa.  The dramatic 2001 Folsom Street building, with its poured-in-place concrete walls and rhythmic facade that plays theme and variation with the bay window, is considered one of the major achievements of 20th-century architecture worldwide.  But its just one work in the expanding oeuvre of a local architect who, in his third decade in practice (that's midcareer for an architect) is at the height of his influence and power.  Look around the Bay Area and it's hard to find a neighborhood he is not transforming with his brand of modernism.

   The spectrum of work recently completed and on the boards at Stanley Saitowitz/Natoma Architects includes the in-progress plans for the Octavia Gateway (a superbly programmed series of urban residences in Hayes Valley); the Oxbow Art School in Napa; two synagogues; a new church in the Castro; the 40-story Jack London Tower in Oakland; Conduit restaurant in the Mission; Mizu spa and TanBella salon in SoMa; an elegent, pared-down apartment buiding on Natoma Street; and a series of residences around the state.  And although Saitowitz forcuses on this particular region, he's in high demand outside the area, too: his lauded work at the Transvaal House in South Africa (now a national monument) and teh multiple-award-winning New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston have helped him land projects in Costa Rica; Sun Valley, Idaho; and Florida. 

   "My firm's work over the last three decades has been to bring modernist ideals into focus, and especially to create modern architecture in this particular geography and culture," says Saitowitz, who is a longtime professor of architecture at UC Berkeley.

   He grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, and began his first practice there in 1975.  "I'm especially interested in quality architecture for public spaces and multifamily housing," he says.  Saitowitz and his talented team are offering an optimistic vision of life in this beautiful landscape.  Interior designer Orlando Diaz-Azcuy says of Saitowitz, "Stanley's architecture possesses an allure and, at the same time, pragmatism that elevates him from being a great architect to being a master architect.  I consider the Yerba

Buena Lofts to be the best piece of residential urban architecture not only in San Francisco but in the country."