San Francisco Landmark #178
San Francisco Women's Building
AKA Mission Turnverein
AKA Dovre Hall
3543 18th Street Between Valencia and Guerrero
Built 1910

This building, in the Mission Revival style, was designed by Bay Area architect Reinhold Denke for the German-Americans Turnverein Society to provide gymnastic and meeting facilities.

For the next 25 years, Mission Turn Hall as it was known, served all populations in the heterogeneous Mission District. The building provided after-school classes for youngsters, a monthly exhibition followed by a social and dance, weddings, receptions, and parties. The Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West were tenants in the building for fifty years.

In 1935, the Sons of Norway and the Daughters of Norway purchased the building and renamed it Dovre Hall, after a mountain range in Norway.

In 1978, the building was purchased by the San Francisco Women's Centers Inc. and renamed the Women's Building.

The mural Maestrapeace which covers two of the exterior walls was painted in 1994 by seven women artists and many helpers: Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton and Irene Perez.

The Women's Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places> on 30 April 2018.