The Transamerican Pyramid600 Montgomery StreetSan Francisco, CA
...46 meters at its base. The top floor is 13.7 by 13.7 meters. Thus pyramid shape breaks the first rule of high-rise economics: its increasingly valuable upper floors grow progressively smaller, so that by the 48th floor, its floorplate has shrunk to a mere 186 square meters – barely big enough for a CEO’s office. There are two “wings” on opposite sides of the building. They start at the 29th floor and are both for form and function. The wing to the east contains an elevator shaft, while the wing to the west contains a stairwell and a smoke tower. The building is covered with white, pre-cast quartz aggregate panels. The top part of the building is a 64.6 meters high spire, which is covered with vertically louvered aluminum panels. The history of the building goes back to 1968, when John R. Beckett, the president of the Transamerican Corporation at the time noticed that the trees in a city park – unlike the surrounding, box-like buildings – allowed natural light and fresh air to filter down to the street below. Wishing to achieve the same effect with his company’s new headquarters, this unconventional shape was chosen for his skyscraper. The original plans were announced in 1969 for a 305 meters tall, pyramid-shaped building, which could have been almost as tall as New York’s Chrysler Building. However, the nascent anti-high-rise movement rallied against it; the Director of City Planning tried to stop it, while the San Francisco Chronicle, the mostly acknowledged daily newspaper in the area, has trashed it. On one hand, they claimed that the skyscraper would be too high; on the other hand, people thought that its shape would not fit in the city’s skyline. But after seven floors were cut to appease opponents, Transamerica was approved and built. The building was completed in 1972 at a cost of $44 million. When it was built, it surpassed the Bank of America building (also in SF) and thus became the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. However, its domination lasted only until 1974, when the Aon Center in Los Angeles surpassed it. The architect of the building, William L. Pereira has designed its work in futurist style. Futurism is a broad trend in modern design, which aspires to create architecture of an imagined future, normally thought to be least 10 years into the future. The beginnings of Futurism go back to the visionary drawings of Italian architect Antonio Sant’Elia, as well as the “Googie” architecture of 1950’s California and subsequent Space Age trends. Early features of Futurism included fins and ledges, bubble shapes and sweeping curves. The style has been reinterpreted be different generations of architects across several decades, but is usually marked by striking shapes, clean lines, and advanced material. For an economical point of view, a pyramid is not an efficient structure in terms of surface, but it was a way for the architect to get around the strict building laws that imposed a certain ratio between the buildings surface and its height. In addition, according to the architect, the pyramid is the ideal shape for skyscrapers, offering the practical advantage of letting more air and light in the adjacent streets. And although several people raised their voice against its shape at the beginning, by the late-‘70’s, it had already begun to work its way into San Franciscan’s hearts. Furthermore, in his “Tales of the City”, a famous writer of San Francisco had one of his characters point to the Pyramid as proof that San Franciscans were the descendants of the lost city of Atlantis,...