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The Internet Archive building, housed in the former Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist, is a historic building located at 300 Funston Avenue, corner of Clement Street, in the Richmond District of San Francisco, California. Built in 1923, it was designed by noted San Francisco architect Carl Werner in the Classical Revival style[2][3] with Corinthian columns.[4] The approximately 23,000 square feet (2,100 m2) building is now the headquarters of the Internet Archive.[5]

History

1922 cost estimates rose from $125,000[6] to $150,000.[7][8] A San Francisco Chronicle estimate in November 1923 projected $175,000 for the project.[9]

1919 Sanborn map with a note showing the upcoming church
Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist (1930)
Great Room (2010)
Great Room (2013)

Due to the dwindling size of its congregation and the increased cost of maintaining such a large building, the building was sold in September 2009 to the Internet Archive for $4.5 million.[5][3][10] The Archive chose the church based on its Greek Revival design, which resembles the logo of the Internet Archive, which features the Library of Alexandria.[11][12][13][2] A 2021 SF Chronicle article described the main room as cavernous, quiet and “diffused with a golden light that filters through the windows.”[14] The auditorium has hymn numbers on either side of the stage, including 200, 404 and 451, representing the http status codes for successfully loaded page, unsuccessful, and blocked for legal reasons respectively.[14] The room also houses servers on the back wall that held 1/10th of the archives online material as of 2024[14][4] and, since 2009, the room has been home to terracotta sculptures of employees who have worked at the Archive for more than three years.[15]

On November 6, 2013, a side building built in the 1940’s as a Christian Science reading room at Internet Archive’s headquarters in San Francisco’s Richmond District caught fire,[16] destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments.[17] According to The Archive, it lost the side-building that housed one of 30 of its scanning centers; cameras, lights, and scanning equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; and “maybe 20 boxes of books and film, some irreplaceable, most already digitized, and some replaceable”.[18] The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage.[19]

Founder and Digital Librarian Brewster Kahle often leads the free public tour of the archive that is given every Friday after lunch.[15][20][21][4]

See also

References

  1. ^ Paul E. Ivey, Prayers in stone: Christian Science architecture in the United States, 1894-1930, p. xiii, 168-169
  2. ^ a b Evangelista, Benny (October 13, 2012). “Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive”. SFGATE. Archived from the original on March 17, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Dunnigan, Frank. “Streetwise: Lost Houses of Worship”. OpenSFHistory. Western Neighborhoods Project. Archived from the original on September 9, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Knibbs, Kate (September 27, 2024). “The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself”. Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  5. ^ a b Dineen, J.K.; Torres, Blanca (October 4, 2009). “Internet Archive pays $4.5M for former church”. San Francisco Business Times. Archived from the original on June 30, 2015. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  6. ^ “4th Church of Christ Scientist, Richmond District, San Francisco, CA (1922-1923)”. Pacific Coast Architecture Database. University of Washington. Archived from the original on September 9, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  7. ^ “Iron & Steel Construction News”. The Bridgemen’s Magazine. International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. 1922. p. 414.
  8. ^ Engineering News-Record. Vol. 89. McGraw-Hill. 1922. p. 107.
  9. ^ “New Church for Richmond District”. San Francisco Chronicle. November 24, 1923. p. 8.
  10. ^ Coté, John (2010-02-17). “5 S.F. churches languish in limbo”. SFGATE. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  11. ^ Lepore, Jill (January 26, 2015). “The Cobweb: Can the Internet be archived?”. The New Yorker. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved September 3, 2017.
  12. ^ “In An Old Church, The Internet Archive Stores Our Digital History”. KALW. 11 September 2019.
  13. ^ Lane, Barbara (2022-02-21). “Inside a former S.F. church, a battle for the future of knowledge”. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  14. ^ a b c DiFeliciantonio, Chase (2021-09-06). “He founded the Internet Archive with a utopian vision. That hasn’t changed, but the internet has”. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  15. ^ a b Yang, Junyao (2025-01-21). “At the Internet Archive, employees stay forever — in clay sculptures”. Mission Local. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  16. ^ B, Sarah (November 6, 2013). “Part of Internet Archive building badly burned in early morning fire”. Richmond District Blog (Blog). Archived from the original on January 31, 2017. Retrieved February 11, 2017.
  17. ^ Alexander, Kurtis (November 16, 2013). “Internet Archive’s S.F. office damaged in fire”. San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013.
  18. ^ “Fire Update: Lost Many Cameras, 20 Boxes. No One Hurt”. Internet Archive Blogs. November 6, 2013. Archived from the original on November 7, 2013.
  19. ^ Shu, Catherine (November 6, 2013). “Internet Archive Seeking Donations To Rebuild Its Fire-Damaged Scanning Center”. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on July 6, 2017.
  20. ^ Johnson, Sydney (2023-04-05). “SF-Based Internet Archive Is Fighting a Ruling That Could Change the Future of Digital Libraries | KQED”. www.kqed.org. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  21. ^ “Teen filmmakers showcase SF’s Internet Archive in short film”. Marin Independent Journal. 2025-10-14. Retrieved 2026-04-23.