The San Francisco Blueprints Collection was donated to the Environmental Design Archives in 1976 and is composed of blueprints of buildings in the city of San Francisco. The blueprints were originally part of the city Building Inspector Office, and they were all microfilmed by that office for access and preservation. The Building Inspectors Office held copies of all drawings for buildings constructed in San Francisco from 1906 until the present day.

George A. Applegarth was born October 4, 1876 in Oakland, California. He began his professional career as a draughtsman for his uncle George Sanders, of the architectural firm Wright & Sanders in San Francisco. After studying at the University of California, Berkeley under Bernard Maybeck, and at his encouragement, Applegarth attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he was a member of LaLoux atelier, and received his diploma in 1906. Upon his return to the United States, he formed a partnership with Kenneth MacDonald, which lasted for six years, after which time Applegarth practiced on his own. Applegarth's career comprised over forty projects, including the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Clift Hotel, residential and commercial projects for the Spreckles family, and the town of Clyde, California. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He died in 1972.

Herman C. Baumann was born in Oakland, CA in 1890. Baumann started his architectural practice in 1905 in San Francisco, specializing in apartment houses. A prolific architect, Baumann designed 137 apartment buildings in one year. During a five year span he constructed over 500 apartment buildings, including the 22-story Bellaire Apartments and other multi-story buildings. He also designed hotels and commercial buildings in San Francisco, Oakland, and Sacramento. During World War II he designed and built numerous naval facilities around the San Francisco Bay Area. Herman Baumann died a week before his 70th birthday on April 6, 1960.

Daniel H. Burnham was born in Henderson, New York in 1846. Burnham apprenticed with a few Chicago architecture firms, and then opened his own practice in 1873, Burnham and Root, with John W. Root. After Root died in 1891, the firm name was changed to D.H. Burnham & Company, and they were responsible for the design and construction of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Burnham designed a city plan for San Francisco in 1905, but after the earthquake and fire in 1906, the plan was never realized. Burnham was one of the leading architects of the early 20th century, with his firm being the largest in the world at the time of his death in 1912.

Alexander A. Cantin was born in Oakland in 1876, and became one of the first licensed architects in the state of California in 1898. He is possibly best known for designing a series of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph buildings in San Francisco and collaborated with the firm of Miller and Pflueger on the 26-story, Coast Division Building of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company at 140 New Montgomery Street. He is also known for the number of movie theatres he designed throughout the Bay Area beginning in the 1920s including the Orinda Theater and San Francisco's Coronet Theater (now demolished) designed with his son. He partnered with his son to form Cantin & Cantin in 1948, and the firm was active until Alexander Cantin’s death in 1964.

Gardner A. Dailey was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1895 and moved to California in 1915. He studied at UC Berkeley and Stanford University, though did not graduate from either institution, and after working for a few architecture firms, Dailey opened his own practice in 1927. Dailey's practice encompassed designs for medical, commercial, residential, educational, and recreational projects. Some of his clients included the Biltmore Hotel of Santa Barbara, Matson Shipping Company, Stanford University; UC Berkeley; and the San Francisco Park Commission. Dailey died in 1967.

Henry Gutterson was born in 1884 in Minnesota. He graduated from Berkeley High School in 1903, from the University of California, Berkeley School of Architecture in 1905 and attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1906 to 1909. He worked for John Galen Howard on the Panama-Pacific Exposition and St. Francis Wood and for the City of Oakland before opening his own practice in 1914. Gutterson's major projects include the duplexes and cottages along Rose Walk, 75 houses in St. Francis Wood where he was supervising architect, The Christian Science Benevolent Society, Arden Wood in San Francisco and many Christian Science churches. He died in 1954.

Lewis P. Hobart was born in St. Lewis in 1873. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees, and also studied at the American Academy in Rome and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. After completing his studies, Hobart worked in New York for two years before moving to San Francisco in 1906. Hobart was very involved in the rebuilding of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire of 1906, and designed structures in a variety of styles that reflected his Beaux Arts training. He was the original architect for Grace Cathedral (completed by Weihe, Frick & Kruse), designed the Academy of Sciences, the University of California hospital, and several office buildings in downtown San Francisco and Oakland.

George W. Kelham was born in Massachusetts in 1871, studied at Harvard University and graduated from the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1896. Kelham was working for the New York firm Trowbridge & Livingston in 1906 when he was sent to San Francisco to work on the Palace Hotel. Kelham remained in San Francisco and was the master planner for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. He designed many buildings in downtown San Francisco and was the UC Berkeley campus architect from 1927-1931.

Gustave Albert Lansburgh was born in 1876 in Panama City, Panama. He attended UC Berkeley from 1894 to 1896, and subsequently attended the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris. Lansburgh returned to San Francisco in 1906 and partnered with Bernard J. Joseph until 1908 when Lansburgh established his own private practice. Lansburgh was most famous for his opulent theaters, many originally designed for vaudeville and later transformed into movie palaces. At the height of his career, he ran offices out of San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, was appointed to the architectural commission of the 1915 Panama-Pacific exposition, and was responsible for designing many of the exposition's buildings, including the Motor Transportation Building. He died in San Mateo in 1969.

Frederick H. Meyer was born in San Francisco in 1876. He began his career in the early 1890s as a draftsman for a mill and worked in a number of architectural offices prior to beginning his own practice. He is listed in the San Francisco City Directory under Newsom & Meyer in 1899-1900, under his own name in 1901 and as Meyer & O'Brien beginning in 1902. Meyer was a prolific designer, responsible for many of the buildings designed in the San Francisco area after the 1906 earthquake and fire. In 1913, Under Jim Rolph's Mayoral administration, Meyer was appointed to serve as one of the three members of the San Francisco Civic Center Commission, whose tasks included the evolution and supervision of the City's Civic Center plan. Meyer's practice consisted primarily of public, commercial and industrial projects, including public libraries, breweries, hospitals, and public schools.

Henry H. Meyers was born in Livermore in 1867 and studied architecture at night in San Francisco. Meyers entered the San Francisco firm of Percy & Hamilton as an apprentice around 1890 and by 1900 was chief draftsman. In 1904 Meyers partnered with Clarence Ward, a partnership which lasted until 1910. Meyers practiced independently from 1910-1922 designing primarily commercial and institutional buildings. After 1922, Meyers was associated with architect George R. Klinkhardt. After 1930, Meyers also practiced with his daughter, Mildred S. Meyers, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. Meyers retired from architectural practice in 1936, and passed away after an extended illness in 1943.

Albert Pissis was born in Mexico in 1852, moved to San Francisco as a child, and was one of the first Americans to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1880 he moved to San Francisco and established a practice with William Moore. Pissis played a major role in reconstructing San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire. He died in 1914.

Willis Polk was born in Jacksonville, Illinois in 1867, began working with a local contractor at the age of eight, and within five years had become an office boy in the firm of architect Jerome B. Legg. Polk worked for a number of architecture firms in the Midwest and in 1889, Polk joined the office of A. Page Brown and moved with Brown's firm to San Francisco. Polk moved to Chicago in 1901 to work with Daniel Burnham, and by 1903 was back in San Francisco assisting Burnham with his master plan for the city. In 1910 Polk started his own firm, Polk & Co., and was the supervising architect for the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in 1915. Polk & Co. completed more than one hundred major commercial buildings and domestic residences in the Bay Area prior to his death in 1924.