Icons or eyesores? See the buildings Sacramento is considering for landmark status

A Sacramento Superior Court judge unfavorably compared Sacramento’s aging Gordon Schaber Courthouse to a vintage car a few years ago.

“I had a ’52 Chevy. It caught on fire. That car was still better than this courthouse,” Judge Lloyd Connelly told The Bee in 2016.

But the courthouse evidently has some fans. It and three other midcentury modern buildings in Sacramento will be considered on Wednesday by the city’s Preservation Commission for listing as historic landmarks.

The other three buildings include the Iva Gard Shepard Garden & Art Center in McKinley Park, the Gunther’s Quality Ice Cream Company on Franklin Boulevard and a Chase Bank branch building — the former Senator Savings and Loan Association — on Freeport Boulevard.

The buildings were constructed between 1949 and 1965, and represent different styles of midcentury modern architectural period. The city received a U.S. Department of the Interior grant to survey buildings from the period.

A building must qualify on one or more of several factors to be eligible for landmark status, including design features that are distinctive of a significant architectural style and limited alterations to its original design.

The county courthouse, built in 1965, is praised as an “important and early example in Sacramento of the Brutalist style.”

“The Brutalist style features large concrete masses in block or sculptural form that are left unpolished to convey honesty and texture, flat roofs, rectilinear form, and windows located in voids,” the Preservation Commission report says.

This story was originally published October 16, 2018 at 12:09 PM.