History of the Industrial Center Building: Marinship

Mold Loft and Yard Office

COUPAR's client Rebecca Katz Art located in Sausalito's landmark Industrial Center Building (ICB), will participate in the Winter Open Studios. Before the massive 107,000 square feet structure was an artists' community, it was home to WWII shipbuilders. Known as the Mold Loft and Yard Office, it opened in the spring of 1942 as a part of the Marinship complex. During the three years, the shipyard operated, 93 ships were launched, including 15 Liberty Ships and 78 Tankers, to replace those sunk by German and Japanese submarines. W.A. Bechtel Corporation designed, built, and operated the Mold Loft and Yard Office and 29 other Marinship buildings.

Giacomo Patri’s illustrations appeared in the SF Chronicle, Sunday, November 1, 1942, entitled “Marinship—A Bay Area Miracle.”

In response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, that launched the United States into World War II, Sausalito's waterfront changed forever. Marinship's designated area, a former maintenance yard for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, included the residential neighborhood of Pine Point, a wooded knoll overlooking a salt marsh. The 32 homeowners lived in modest turn-of-the-century craftsman-style houses built for railroad workers and their families. They needed to relocate in 30 days. Workers jacked their homes up, inserted four-wheeled dollies under each corner, and towed them to other parts of Sausalito.

Call to action for wartime workers

Bechtel Company bulldozed any remaining houses and leveled Pine Point using the salvaged soil to fill the tidal marsh to create the shipways and yard. Once completed, Marinship drew thousands of workers to the yards, with its force reaching 20,000 at its peak. George Keeney managed the Hiring Hall on Caledonia Street, where an ethnically and vocationally diverse group of men and women came from near and far. He said of the employees, "Fourteen deaf-mute chippers for the Plate shop, ex-convicts, attorneys, actors, pro-athletes, European refugees, and at one time, we had about 60% of the San Francisco Symphony working at Marinship in various capacities.”

A Marinship Yard worker plein air painting a Liberty Ship during WWII.

After the bustle of wartime activity, Sausalito returned to being a quiet fishing village. In the 1950s, an influx of artists came to develop an art colony in the Marinship. They were attracted to the Mold Loft and Yard Office building's big open spaces, natural light, cheap rent, and nearby houseboats. The art community grew, and in 1953, The Sausalito Art Festival started. The Mold Loft and Yard Office became the Industrial Center Building. Today the ICB Artists consists of over 100 portrait and landscape painters, printmakers, photographers, writers, and garment designers. 

Winter Open Studios is on Sat & Sun, December 3 & 4 (11 am-5 pm), at the ICB Building, 480 Gate 5 Road, Sausalito.