Everywhere you look, there’s fresh evidence that today’s San Francisco is being torn in two directions — between embracing the here and now and wishing we could turn back the clock.

The latest case study? Those Parisian-flavored public toilets and advertising kiosks that arrived here 20 years ago are likely to be replaced by new “street furnishings” with a straightforward, modern feel.

“The days of trying to be Paris are gone,” said Mohammed Nuru, director of the Department of Public Works, referring to the update of 25 commodes and 114 kiosks scheduled to debut next year. “We don’t need to borrow from other cities to give us an identity. We have an identity of our own.”

The process is moving forward, with Monday’s stamp of approval from the San Francisco Arts Commission the latest step. But as the contract with French firm JCDecaux nears consideration by the Board of Supervisors, don’t be surprised if skeptics prepare to do battle.

“The designs are hideous, compared to the lovely Art Nouveau ones they’re trying to replace,” Darcy Brown, executive director of San Francisco Beautiful, said of the plans to update the kiosks and toilets. “They would say that we are Anycity, U.S.A.”

Aesthetics weren’t a factor when JCDecaux installed our current commodes in the mid-1990s.

Then, as now, many people were offended by the sights and smells left behind by other people who treat public sidewalks as their private urinals (or worse). Because of that, City Hall was open to a trade-off that would allow roughly four revenue-producing kiosks for every public toilet to be installed.

But then, unlike now, the notion of large-scale contemporary design was taboo. That’s why buildings from the era tried their best to look like old ones.

So if public sanitation demanded we install boxy loos and vertical billboards on public streets, why not dress them in mock-Parisian garb?

Which caught JCDecaux by surprise.

“Coming from Europe to the U.S. at the time, we expected people would want designs more modern,” said J. Francois Nion, who heads the firm’s San Francisco office. “But when we showed our (design) options, people wanted tradition and some heritage.”

Hence the Art Nouveau flourishes, the gold accents and rounded forms — elements not to be found in the design concepts moving forward.

The updated equipment would be roughly the same square footage as what’s there now and in the same locations. But the public toilets would be all right angles. The kiosks, three flat panels forming a triangle rather than today’s round form.

The materials would be a monochromatic mix of gray metal and opaque security glass — glass set against solid panels, rest assured.

Overall, the aim is “to reflect a quiet timelessness,” reads the statement by Roma Design Group, a local firm working with JCDecaux, to the Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review Committee. “Minimalist in nature, but with care given to proportion and detail.”

With the Arts Commission now in the rearview window, the next stop in the approval process is the Historic Preservation Commission. Then it would go to the Board of Supervisors, which has final say over whether or not to approve the new 20-year contract.

Aesthetics aren’t the only issue.

Revenues coming to the city supposedly would rise exponentially, although the amounts are being kept confidential during negotiations. JCDecaux would pay for workers from local job-training programs to be on duty at 12 to 15 public toilets. The staffers would make sure the enclosed spaces aren’t vandalized or used for prostitution or drug dealing.

“It’s the only way to ensure the toilets are usable by all people at all times,” Nuru said. Another sign of the way we live now.

A much different issue involves the kiosks — what will be displayed and how.

Many of the original kiosks were designed to hold newsstands where real people would sell newspapers and magazines (how quaint!). The others held old-fashioned advertisements.

Now, the idea is advertising kiosks that allow “opportunities for communications created by the latest digital and Wi-Fi devices,” according to the Roma presentation. Instead of newsstands, think “entrepreneurial opportunities for incubators.”

These 21st century aspects are what has San Francisco Beautiful on alert.

“What concerns me greatly is installing digital billboards, the advertising component,” said Brown, whose advocacy group was founded in 1947 to preserve then-threatened cable cars. “We’ll be going down a slippery slope.”

For her, the muted design of the proposed replacements compounds the problem: “They show zero imagination — just popping a drab rectangle on the streets.”

Watching all this is Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who’s likely to weigh in when the contract reaches the board this winter.

“I have an antipathy toward in-your-face advertising on every corner,” said Peskin, never shy about second-guessing the bureaucratic process. And though he says aesthetics are less important than the digital aspects, he added, “I’m less than thrilled with the new design.”

On the whole, I support the proposed updates: synthetic period pieces have nothing to do with anything other than wishing the world would slow down. Familiarity as a means to mask change.

That said, it’s vital that the understated modernity be as crisply detailed as possible. The backers should show us mock-ups of how the final project might look in real life, not just material samples and architectural renderings.

But even for an urban design critic, it’s hard to get worked up about the aesthetic aspects of the proposed update. Or the question of whether advertising images will move or remain static.

Take a walk down Market Street, and I’ll bet you don’t focus on the undeniable clutter of “street furnishings” and overhead wires and utility poles. What’s troubling are the people afflicted by misery and anger — aspects of urban life that only grow more pressing, even in a city supposedly as prosperous as ours.

Place is a weekly column by John King, The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron