Sawtooth Building

The Sawtooth Building is a historic 1913 brick and steel industrial building erected in 1913 as the West Coast manufacturing headquarters of the Kawneer Manufacturing Co. in Berkeley, California, it gets its name from the saw-tooth roof form of its design.

Located at 2547 Eighth Street, between Dwight Way and Parker St, Berkeley, California, the building was erected to the Kawneer Manufacturing Company founder, Swedish born cabinet-maker Francis John Plym (1869–1940), who became an architect, inventor, machinist, and businessman. The Kawneer Manufacturing Company is considered to have revolutionized storefront design and influenced the appearance of retail and commercial building design around the world. The large roof lights to the twenty saw-tooth roof bays, which stretch the entire width of the building, are considered early precursors to the glass-curtain designs that dominated later twentieth century office buildings.[1]

The office building on the Dwight Way frontage employs the company's own product from the middle of the twentieth century. It was described as ...one of Berkeley’s most artistic manufacturing plants, which is used as a model for industry in many places.[2]

The building was subsequently purchased by the Sealy Mattress Co., which relocated from Oakland continuing to operated up to 1972, when the site was purchased by A.J. Bernard, and divided into 35 smaller spaces for sublease to small industries, craftspeople, artisans, artists, performance spaces and a school.[1]