Growing up, I moved and travelled a lot and have always been fascinated by how culture shapes the way we live. When I first moved to San Francisco, I loved the diversity and the various communities in the city. I especially loved walking down Fillmore Street and Japantown. With the high-end fashion boutique stores paired with gourmet ice cream and burger shops, Fillmore Street must be where all the cool and hip people hang out. However once you walk past Japantown and Geary Street, Fillmore Street becomes another story. It transforms into a residential district adorned with pockets of African American communities. There are remnants of jazz cafes and barber shops from when African Americans moved into the neighborhood. Whenever walking down on Fillmore, I have always been confused by this distinct difference and imaginary boundary between economic and ethnic communities. It is also amazing how all this diversity is taking place on one single street.
After doing some research, I realized that the Fillmore today is a very toned down and quiet version of what it was back in the beginning of the 20th century to the 1960s. Fillmore was a bustling district of Japanese, Jews, Mexicans and other immigrant communities. It was even considered as a main street, like today’s Market Street. After World War II when African Americans moved in, Fillmore was even coined as “Harlem of the West”. While the excitement and activity is no longer present, remnants of Fillmore’s history and culture can still be found today. Through this project, I want to capture the different communities on Fillmore Street and what Fillmore means to the people who live and work there. Through the eyes of an interior designer, I want to investigate how the interior space reveals the history and culture of Fillmore and how it has evolved over the years. By interviewing people and taking photographs, I hope to be able to capture Fillmore’s identity and the attitudes of the people in the present day.
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AuthorSharon Lam is currently a 4th-year interior design student studying at California College of the Arts. She is interested in designing spaces that are not only aesthetically pleasing but most importantly rooted in the cultural and social environments of the people. Raised in Hong Kong, she was exposed to different cultures and had opportunities to travel around the world at a young age. As a designer, she believes that it is important to have a broad perspective of the world and to understand how culture and the environment can affect how people live. |