The finalists, who all have experience working on memorial projects, were announced at a noontime event at Memorial Court, between the War Memorial Opera House and the Veterans Building.
Memorial Court is where the memorial will eventually be built. A veterans memorial was planned there when the court was completed in 1936, but was never installed at the site.
In one of the design teams named as finalists, Lee Norman is teaming up with Scott Slaney and Ricardo Supiciche of SWA Group.
Norman has won several memorial competitions, including in Chile and in Toledo, Ohio. SWA Group helped create the living roof garden at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
A second team consists of Larry Kirkland and J. Douglass Macy. Kirkland is working with disabled veterans to create a national memorial in Washington, D.C., and has collaborated on several occasions with Macy, who has created a Vietnam Veterans memorial in Portland, Ore.
The last of the finalists is artist and architect Susan Narduli, who is teaming with San Francisco-based landscape architect Andrea Cochran.
Narduli has worked on several memorials in California, including in Long Beach, Ventura and Orange.
The finalists will each submit their proposals, which will be put on display at the Veterans Building in the spring. The Veterans Memorial Committee will announce the winner in May.
Members of the public, particularly military veterans, are encouraged to come and view the proposals once they are displayed, and to share their thoughts about them.
Once the winner is named, the memorial will be built using about $2 million in private donations. It is scheduled to be dedicated in November 2013.
For more information, or to donate to the memorial project, visit www.sfveteransmemorial.org.
