Environmental artist Ned Kahn created Firefly, a 12-story kinetic sculpture, to mimic fireflies, which are a threatened species. The sculpture moves with the wind, triggering a series of lights at night.

The title is a scientific term explaining the life cycle of insects, but the sculpture is reminiscent of artist Joyce Hsu's summer memories. She hopes children at Argonne Playground, where the sculpture is installed, will share her fascination with dragonflies.

Artist Mark di Suvero gained fame in San Francisco with an exhibit of his sculptures on Crissy Field over the past year. This, however, is his permanent SF work, built in 1978. It's built out of steel and weighs ten tons and sits at the port where di Suvero first entered the US from China as a child.

Love it or hate it, chances are that you know the famous Cupid's Span sculpture along the Embarcadero. It was created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen to to evoke the myth of Eros.

This 40-foot-high fountain is made out of precast concrete square tubes. It has been controversial, with many attempts made to remove it. Bono famously spray-painted graffiti on the fountain during a 1987 U2 concert.

Playland Revisited, by Ray Beldner, recalls the former beachside amusement park with iconic symbols such as cable cars, a clown face, and this silhouette of "Laughing Sal," who used to stand at the entrance to Playland.

A big trio of funny-looking heads created by Ugo Rondinone stands in contrast to the glassy corporate building on site.

Andy Goldsworthy's Spire rises nearly 100 feet above the Presidio, near Arguello Gate. The artist made it from 38 cypress trees that had reached the end of their life cycle.

Andy Goldsworthy's second Presidio sculpture is Wood Line, which is near Lovers' Lane, the Presidio's oldest footpath. His lines made of wood "draw the place."

These kaleidoscopic lookouts on Octavia Boulevard by artist Po Shu Wang came with the revitalization of the area after the Central Freeway was torn down. The telescopes of the installation change a user's view of the surrounding neighborhood.

In 2013 the Bay Bridge lit up with a 1.8-mile-long light sculpture by Leo Villareal. There are 25,000 individual white LEDs in the work, which lights up in patterns inspired by the weather, tides, and traffic volume.

Maya Lin's first San Francisco sculpture shows the topography between Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge in stainless steel tubing. It was meant to get people to think about what's under the water in a new way.

Bliss Dance, by Marco Cochrane, is a 40-foot-tall welded-steel sculpture on Treasure Island's shoreline.

Banksy has several pieces around San Francisco, but this one is our favorite. When it was created in 2010, it was alone on the wall, but has since been joined by other artworks.

Richard Serra's Ballast is made up of two steel plates that are 50 feet high by 15 feet wide and sits on UCSF's Mission Bay campus. The plates remind Serra of growing up in the Outer Sunset.

Ruth Asawa's beloved fountain, which features relief scenes of San Francisco, was at the center of controversy last year when a new Apple store nearly buried it. But plans were revised and the fountain will remain.

Henry Moore's curved sculpture is an abstraction of the human figure. There are seven casts of it around the world. This one was purchased for $400,000 in 1980.

These illuminated books appear to be taking flight over Chinatown. Words and phrases from the books are embedded in the plaza, recognizing the area's literary history. Artist Brian Goggin is probably best known for Defenestration, the flying-furniture sculpture that came down earlier this year.

One Maritime Plaza, set in a rooftop garden, is filled with a variety of public art, including this sculpture by Charles Perry. The figure is made up of spirals that create an icosahedron shape.

As part of the Leland Avenue Streetscape Improvement project, these overgrown parking meters created by Rebar invite viewers to think about a future where obsolete parts of automobile culture can be reused as art.

Michael Arcega's street posts have Victorian-inspired crowns with "Valencia Street Public Post" carved on top. The posts are meant to house community bulletin boards in their midsections.

Skygate was built in 1985 as San Francisco's first piece of public art funded by a corporation. It is dedicated to the memory of Eric Hoffer, a longshoreman, poet, and philosopher.