FOUR FIFTY SUTTER: Medical Building and the San Francisco Stock Exchange

First edition of this tribute to the iconic San Francisco skyscraper, designed by architect Timothy Pflueger with Mayan-inspired motifs - completed on October 15, 1929, just in time for the stock market crash two weeks later. The 450 Sutter project was the "brainchild of an eccentric dentist and Renaissance man," Francis Edward Morgan Jr., who was described by his daughter as "a cartoonist, jig dancer, promoter, architect, rhymester, and a perfectionist as a dentist" (Poletti). Pflueger's design incorporated office suites optimized for medical use and exteriors aesthetically modeled on ancient Mayan design elements, as well as lace-like metal and terracotta detailing and an immense marble-walled lobby - all pictured here with Garren's glowing commentary on "METAL UNTO ART." One of the last skyscrapers built in San Francisco until the 1950s, "still heralded as one of the most inventive buildings of its time" (Poletti). 12'' x 9''. Original pictorial brown wrappers with cover illustration by Herbert Ridelstein. Silver metallic endpapers. Black and white photographs throughout by Gabriel Moulin and Roger Sturtevant. Printed by the Mercury Press, engravings by Sterling Engraving Company. 38, [2] pages. Light edgewear and soil, a few tiny closed tears, minor dampstaining to top edge.…