At Freemasons' Hall, What's Old is New Again

When architect Kevin Hackett was approached about creating the new Freemasons’ Hall, to be housed inside the California Masonic Memorial Temple in San Francisco, his design inspiration came from another age and place. In Britain and Europe, lodges for centuries met in small, cramped spaces either inside, above, or sometimes beneath neighborhood bars and taverns—a practice that lasted until the middle of the 20th century, in many cases. 

It therefore seemed appropriate that the only space available for the new lodge room in San Francisco was a corner of the windowless exhibition hall directly beneath the Masonic auditorium, a thundering Live Nation music venue. “Once you choose an esoteric route in life, you end up in some really interesting spaces,” jokes Hackett, the co-founder and principal of the San Francisco design firm Síol Studios and a member of Logos № 861 and Mission № 169. 

Five years later, the new Freemasons’ Hall is the meeting place of no fewer than eight Masonic lodges, including Hackett’s Logos № 861. And far from being some dank bar basement, the lodge room is a triumphant blend of rich midcentury aesthetics (clean lines, brass detailing, organic materials) and timeless classicism (marble columns, stepped wooden moldings). But even amid such elevated trappings, the spirit of those bygone gatherings in humble watering holes prevails. To Hackett and others, the result points to the next step for lodges in California: small, special, and endlessly meaningful. “When bigger lodges splinter into more intimate groups, that will be the evolution of Freemasonry,” Hackett says. Here, the architect gives a tour of California’s first “urban microlodge.”