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Academy of Art University, Van Ness Avenue
Not your average university building. The 106-year-old Romanesque St. Brigid Church was recently slated for destruction by the Catholic Archdiocese. However due to a local campaign to keep it from being demolished, the church was instead sold in October to San Francisco's Academy of Art University which plans on preserving the church. St. Brigid's features stained glass windows from Harry Clarke Studios in Dublin, Ireland; a Ruffatti pipe organ custom made for the church in Italy, and statuary by turn-of-the-century California artists and the famed Irish sculptor Seamus Murphy. The school envisions using the church as a meeting hall, and its basement gymnasium as a sports facility. The Academy of Art University, the largest private school of art and design in America, occupies about 30 buildings throughout the city and has an enrollment of nearly 9,000 students.
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