In San Francisco the concept of change carries great currency when it comes to food, technology, family and politics, but utter the word in the context of a peeling Victorian facade or a distressed brick warehouse, and people will begin muttering about “neighborhood character” and “the way it’s always been.”

Sure, we have the Federal Building and the de Young Museum expressing San Francisco’s newfound willingness to tiptoe into the 21st century, but these buildings ain’t where folks sleep. Over the years, I’ve heard too many rants from architects to forget that getting permits for an innovative design can be an uphill battle - especially if the property lies in a “well-established” neighborhood (a.k.a. somewhere with historic homes occupied by middle-class homeowners with time to organize neighborhood groups). When it comes to residential architecture, our fair city gives new meaning to the phrase “arch conservative.”

So when I saw that the American Institute of Architects’ San Francisco chapter was offering a weekend of home tours “showcasing modernism at its finest,” I was curious about how a new generation of residential buildings was fitting into our well-loved urban landscape.

What did these esteemed “state of the art” single-family homes and architect/developer multifamily buildings say about the place of modern architecture in San Francisco’s infamously protective neighborhoods? Which neighborhoods were more open to innovation amidst all the vintage Victorian, Edwardian, Mediterranean and midcentury? And while we’re at it, how had these architects managed to get permits for homes without bay windows?

The first thing I noticed is that the heart of modernism beats (if it beats anywhere) on the east side of the city. With the exception of one house in the Outer Richmond, every showcased building was located in the South of Market or in easterly ‘hoods like Potrero Hill, Noe Valley, the Mission and Bernal Heights. The reasons for this are many: Bernal, for instance, although infamous for its neighborhood design groups, also has the most empty lots, which have attracted a generation of designers and architects. But all of these neighborhoods have areas with a surprising diversity of housing stock all cheek-and-jowl to one another.

“It often depends how much diversity there is in the existing context,” says Neal Schwartz of Schwartz and Architecture, whose Potrero Hill three-level home plus office was featured in the tour. “In Potrero, for instance, there’s an amazing diversity of styles, so it’s easier to do contemporary architecture in that context.”

Schwartz’s renovation embodies the other evident fact about these “new modernist buildings.” All but one of the single-family homes on the tour were not technically new construction but “additions,” “revitalizations” or “expansions.” In the logic of the city’s planning codes, it’s far easier to gut a home and add two floors than get permits to demolish an existing home and build something new. Demolitions are possible, but the home must be sufficiently dilapidated to qualify.

“The limitations against demolishing are a good thing in the sense that they prevent developers from mowing down a block and destroying the existing fabric,” says Andrew Sparks, an associate with Levy Art and Architecture, a firm that showcased a total renovation in Diamond Heights. “But when it’s applied to a single owner it’s very difficult. Getting a demolition permit can take two years alone. And though sometimes it’s cheaper and better to demolish the home, instead they have to renovate what they already have.”

“This is a renovation with a large extension,” Owen Kennerly of Kennerly Architecture and Planning told me from the rooftop deck of an extravagant stone and steel modernist dream house on 27th Street in Noe Valley. “We kept the front room, which was the living room.” Yet looking at the open spaces, massive staircases, and floor-to-ceiling windows of the three-floor home, it’s difficult to imagine where a single scrap of the old structure might have been. Kennerly says that this home - despite its larger-than-life modernist presence - got virtually no resistance from the neighbors.

So does this mean it’s actually easier to get approval for contemporary designs? It depends on whom you ask.

“San Francisco prides itself on being the most liberal city on the planet,” says Ross Levy, founder of Levy Art and Architecture. “But until recently we’ve had a relatively homogeneous building stock. Other cities - like Barcelona, London, Madrid, which are more secure in their history, have embraced modern architecture. But it is getting easier and more acceptable. It’s also more in demand. People are realizing that these are fantastic places to live. Even here, when people buy Victorian homes, we gut them - because no one wants to live in those rooms.”

“It’s still a struggle,” says Sparks. “But it probably will always be a struggle to some extent. Because in doing contemporary architecture, you’re trying to do something new, you’re exploring new materials and exploring space, you’re trying to respond to people’s contemporary lifestyles.”

Other architects suggest that things are finally changing as the populace realizes modernism doesn’t mean cheapo boxes on the hill. “You have to make a good case for change with the Planning Department,” says Kennerly. “But they understand that with good use of materials, good design actually contributes to the neighborhood.”

David Baker, founder of David Baker + Partners, contends that even the neighborhood groups have changed: “If there’s a meeting and someone asks why the building doesn’t look like the Victorians next to it, then some other neighbor will stand up and say, ‘Because we’re not living in the 19th century.’ ”

Yet there are still institutional and community obstacles - obstacles that affect designs, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

All buildings more than 50 years old can be subject to a historic designation, which in turn triggers certain guidelines limiting any alteration of the facade. “Typically the facades of buildings with historical designations can’t be changed more than 25 percent,” explains Sparks, “So we have to work very strategically.”

Sometimes, altering a facade can actually help to unify the look of the neighborhood. Schwartz says that since his home remodel began as an “ugly” 1950s home that was far smaller than homes surrounding it, creating a larger facade was actually “healing the disruption.”

The outcome may be a taller profile - more or less equal to the buildings around it. But it’s also far from ostentatious: a simple stucco front with moderate-size windows in low-key earth tones. With a couple of exceptions, almost all the buildings on the tour - be they warehouses in SOMA or single-family homes in residential neighborhoods - are so inconspicuous that they act as camouflage for the extravagance within.

This of course can be a sly design strategy: “I designed the facade so that someone not interested in design might walk by and not notice it,” says Schwartz, “But for someone into contemporary architecture, they might notice the mahogany windows or the bamboo on the third floor deck and think: Hey, something’s going on in there.”

But the low-key exterior functions as a survival strategy for concealing the secret and sometimes extravagant modern design within. One warehouse on a scrappy street in the Mission, which harbors 10,000 feet of ultramodern grooviness designed by Stanley Saitowitz, exhibits no exterior signs of alteration, except for its flat, monochromatic black facade. Like a secret agent clad all in black, it seems to be whispering: Forget you ever saw me.

E-mail Carol Lloyd at surreal@sfgate.com.

LES ULIS, France: Anne-Laure Renard and Guy Talpot, a French couple planning radical lifestyle changes to reduce their cost of living, are in many ways a typical French family.

They live in a three-bedroom apartment in a small town south of Paris, and their combined pay of \40,000 a year, or about $62,500, places them right in the middle of Frances income distribution.

Over the past year, they have become typical in another way: consumer prices rose four times faster than their salaries, climbing 3.2 percent in the 12 months to March, according to the French national statistics office, Insee. Their bank account is pushing up against their \600 overdraft limit at the end of every month, leading them into an anxiety-filled downward spiral of ever-greater resourcefulness and sacrifice.

“In France, when you cant afford a baguette anymore, you know youre in trouble,” Renard quipped. “The French Revolution started with bread riots.”

While the unease about declining living standards is not unique to France, two factors make it urgent. First, the 35-hour workweek has kept average annual pay increases below 1 percent for nearly a decade, said Robert Rochefort, the director general of Credoc, an institute based in Paris that researches living standards and consumption patterns. Second, French hypermarkets - large, mall-like supermarkets that dominate vast areas with little competition - can keep prices as much as 5 percent higher than in neighboring Germany, he said.

The surge in French consumer prices over the past year was led by a 20 percent jump in energy prices and a 5.6 percent rise in the cost of food.

For Renard, 30, and Talpot, 36, these numbers are the calculus of a stark reality. As a primary school teacher, Renard earns \22,000 a year. This year, she is getting a raise of 0.8 percent. Her companion, a mailman who makes \18,000, got an annual bonus last year of \89, the equivalent of \7.42 a month before tax. Talpot, who starts each day of his 35-hour workweek at 6:30 a.m. and finishes at 1:45 p.m., has been asking for overtime. Now he is also considering taking on a second job in the afternoons.

They used to do all their shopping at Carrefour, the most emblematic of the hypermarket chains. But when their credit card bill in January showed that they had spent more than \1,500 on food the previous month, they realized that they could no longer afford regular supermarket brands. Since then, they only buy baby milk and diapers at Carrefour and everything else at an outlet store called Leader Price.

For a long time, Renard said, she believed that previous generations had paved the way for her to make it in France. Her great-grandmother was illiterate, her grandmother a factory worker; her mother, who started out as a secretary, now works as an office manager and owns her own house.

Renard studied history, and when she decided to become a teacher, she was confident that it would give her an even more comfortable lifestyle and her children all the opportunities they wanted.

Instead, she still finds herself relying on her parents financially and fretting about her sons future. Even though Vincent is not yet walking and Damien, at 3 years, not yet in school, Renard is setting aside \30 a month for each of them in a savings account.

“That is perhaps the most depressing thing,” said Renard. “I already know that I will end up poorer than my parents. What does that mean for my children?”

Renard and Talpot feel a sense of injustice when they acknowledge that restaurant and cinema visits have become a luxury of the past. “The middle classes are getting poor and at the same time bosses are paid millions,” Renard said.

“We have economized as much as we can, there is nothing else to squeeze,” Talpot added.

Almost nothing: The two will get married in a small wedding at the home of Renards mother in June, a decision primarily intended to cut their annual tax bill from about \1,500 to almost zero.

(02-03) 03:26 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) —

For a bipartisan majority of senators, providing three months or six months of extra unemployment checks to more than 1 million jobless people is a better way to dig the economy out of a recession than just printing tax rebate checks.

Some economists agree, and undoubtedly, so do the nearly 1.3 million unemployed workers who face losing an average $282 a week in benefits before June.

But there is strong opposition leading up to a Senate vote in the week ahead on whether to add an extension of jobless benefits to a $161 billion House-passed combination of tax rebates and business tax cuts.

As the economy has slowed, more people have signed up for jobless benefits. The situation can only get worse given the report last week that employers payrolls by 17,000 in January Д a job loss not seen since the tail of the last recession in 2003.

The unemployment rate also is on a generally upward trend. It jumped to 5 percent in December, the highest since right after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, then dipped to 4.9 percent in January.

Last week, the number of laid off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits soared by 69,000 to 375,000. It was the most new claims in one week since October 2005, when Hurricane Katrina and the other Gulf Coast storms disrupted the economy.

The National Employment Law Project estimates that 1.28 million people now collecting unemployment checks will be unable to find a job in the next six months and thus lose that help.

The plan before the 100-member Senate will need 60 votes to prevail. It would cost $14 billion and extend unemployment payments for 13 weeks nationwide to people whose 26 weeks of regular benefits have run out.

People without jobs in states where the unemployment rate has averaged 6.5 percent or more for three months could qualify for an additional 13 weeks of benefits, or 52 weeks altogether. Only Michigan would qualify for the extra 13-week extended benefits now; more states could join it if the job market continues to worsen.