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Ask Curbed SF: Brutalist Post Office Drive-by in Oakland

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Got a question? We love digging. We just don't always come up with an answer, in which case we'll throw the question to the wolves aka your fellow Curbed SF readers. Shoot your inquiries to the Ask Curbed SF Inbox.

A reader writes:

I read Curbed a lot, and I also drive through Oakland a lot, and I thought you'd be a good person to field my question: Do you know which architecture firm designed the brutalist US Post Office building just off of the Nimitz near the bridge? I can't find any answers via the Google.We totally zeroed out on this one, even after consulting the National Archives collection of USPS records. It's the Oakland Postal Distribution Center, and we suspect it's a post-Loma Prieta creation. Brutalism was the perfect style to convey the ugly but won't fall down vibe, although it comes off as more as you do not want to find yourself in here when the next one hits. Above, two images, one west of the Nimitz and the other a street view of the building's front of Seventh Street, ever welcoming the postal consumer. Bonus: it's open until 8pm. If you know what architectural firm was responsible for this civics lesson in cement, please do let us know. Images above from Google Maps, of course.