The Eternal Quest to Save Gap
By and Lily Meier
When you're inside the Gap Inc. headquarters, the grand promise of California stretches out to the horizon in every direction. The building is situated on an almost unfathomably valuable patch of real estate near the foot of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge where, between the building and the bridge, a giant bow and arrow sculpted by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen plunges down into the shore, as though an unseen Goliath is taking aim at China through the center of the Earth. It was commissioned more than two decades ago by Gap's founders, Doris and Donald Fisher—part public art, part de facto insurance policy for their company's panoramic view of the bay.
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