The records include Board and Executive Committee minutes for the years 1907 through 1989, membership files, photographs, and artifacts. Photographs document various chapter events and individuals. The Pacific Society of Architects was founded in May 1881 and submitted the AIA charter petition. The founders were convinced that a unified group of professionals supported by the larger, national organization of the AIA would further protect the practice. In the spring 1882, the AIA granted the organized architects of San Francisco their charter and thereby expanded its membership westward beyond Chicago. In February 1927 the San Francisco Chapter was renamed the Northern California Chapter, which was incorporated on August 4, 1955. In 1980 the chapter became The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter. The most recent name variation, AIA San Francisco, a Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, was adopted by members in 1992.

AIA/SF Records (est. May 1881) First, true taste and accurate knowledge of art in the designer, united with a thorough knowledge of materials and their proper adaptation to truthful construction; second, a public whose educated tastes will be satisfied only by the real; and third, a system of professional instruction for our students or young designers who shall educate teachers as well as be taught, and which, in effect, shall be practical, efficient and sure, and shall embrace not only the highest, but the lowest level of the art.

5 cartons, 20 manuscript boxes

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in the collection should be discussed with the Curator.

Collection is open for research.