Transamerica Pyramid

Transamerica Pyramid
General information
Location	600 Montgomery Street San Francisco
Cost	$32,000,000
Height
Roof	Template:M to ft
Technical details
Floor count	48
Lifts/elevators	18
Design and construction
Architect(s)	William L. Pereira
Engineer	Chin & Hensolt Inc Glumac International Simonson & Simonson

The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest and most recognizable skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline.

Built on the location of the historic Montgomery Block, it has a structural height of 260 meters (853 ft) and contains 48 floors of retail and office space. Construction began in 1969 and finished in 1972. It is currently ranked as the 100^th tallest building in the world. Transamerica moved their headquarters to the new building from across the street, where they used to be based in another pyramid-shaped building now occupied by the Church of Scientology of San Francisco.

Its unique shape is the result of the desire by Transamerica to have a building whose top would be looked up to by the Bank of America executives on the highest floor of the 555 California Street, which is not only tall but also sits upon a substantially higher elevation. The land use and zoning restrictions for the parcel limited the number of square feet of office that could be built upon the lot, which sits at the northern boundary of the financial district. The pyramid is an innovative solution to this design challenge, and when viewed from the East Bay forms a prominent and unique skyline projection, forming an important element of San Francisco's "signature skyline".

Although it no longer houses the headquarters of the Transamerica Corporation, it is still strongly associated with the company and is depicted in the company's logo. The building is evocative of San Francisco and has become one of the many symbols of the city. Designed by architect William Pereira, it faced considerable opposition during its planning and construction, and was sometimes referred to by detractors in derogatory slang.

In 1999, Transamerica was acquired by Dutch insurance company AEGON. When the non-insurance operations of Transamerica were later sold to GE Capital, AEGON retained the building as an investment.

The building is a tall, four-sided pyramid with two "wings" on opposite sides of the building. The wing to the east of the building contains an elevator shaft, while the wing to the west contains a stairwell and a smoke tower. The top 64.6 meters (212 ft) of the building is the spire. There are four cameras pointed in the four cardinal directions at the top of this spire forming a virtual observation deck. Four monitors in the lobby, whose direction and zoom can be controlled by visitors, display the cameras' views 24 hours a day. An observation deck on the 27th floor was closed after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and replaced by the virtual observation deck. The top of the Transamerica Pyramid is covered with aluminum panels. During the holiday season, Thanksgiving, and 4th of July, a bright, white light is lit on top of the pyramid.

The Transamerica Pyramid was the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi from 1972–1974 (surpassing the nearby 555 California Street), at which point it was surpassed by the Aon Center in Los Angeles, which was designed by Pereira's former business partner Charles Luckman.

The building is considered to have been the intended target of a foiled terrorist attack, involving the hijacking of airplanes as part of Oplan Bojinka, which was foiled in 1995.

Specifications

View from Treasure Island

• The building's façade is covered in crushed quartz, giving the building its pure white color.
• The four-story base of the building contains a total of 16,000 cubic yards (12,233 m³) of concrete and over 300 miles (483 km) of steel rebar.
• It has 3,678 windows.
• The building's foundation is 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and was the result of a 24-hour continuous concrete pour.
• Only two of the building's 18 elevators reach the top floor.
• The original proposal called for a 1,150 ft (350.5 m) building, which would have been for one year the second-tallest completed building in the world. The proposal was rejected by the city planning commission on the grounds that it would have interfered with views of San Francisco Bay from Nob Hill.
• The building occupies the site that was the temporary home of A.P. Giannini's Bank of Italy after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed its office. Giannini founded Transamerica in 1928 as a holding company for his financial empire. Bank of Italy later became Bank of America.
• There is a plaque commemorating two famous dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, at the base of the building.
• The hull of the whaling vessel Niantic, an artifact of the 1849 California Gold Rush, lay almost exactly beneath the Transamerica Pyramid, and the location is marked by a historical plaque outside the building (California Historical Landmark #88).
• The aluminum cap is indirectly illuminated from within to balance the appearance at night.
• The two vertical external extensions allow preservation of useful interior space at the upper levels. One extension is the top of elevator shafts while the other is a smoke evacuation tower for fire-fighting.
• A glass pyramid cap sits at the top and encloses both aircraft warning light and a seasonal white beacon.
• At certain times of the year the glass cap will briefly cast a reflected sunlight gleam onto traffic crossing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

• 
  Aluminum-clad top above elevator and smoke towers
• Bright light at the pinnacle and indirect internal top illumination
  Bright light at the pinnacle and indirect internal top illumination
• 
  From Columbus Avenue
• 
  At sidewalk level

Appearance in Popular Culture

From the ground to the sky.

• The 2007 film Zodiac features a time-lapsed scene of the building's construction between 1971 and 1972. The effect was achieved with computer generated imagery
• In Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series — both the books and the miniseries — the pyramid is used as a symbol for the city's mysticism.
• Features prominently in both day and night scenes in the 1988 movie The Presidio starring Sean Connery, Mark Harmon and Meg Ryan.
• The building features on the cover of The Doobie Brothers 1977 album Livin' on the Fault Line, but not in downtown San Francisco. It is on the beach next to a rocky cliff, and partially submerged in the ocean on the rear cover.
• The building was parodied in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas; in the game it was called the "Big Pointy Building", with "Big Prick" jokes strictly forbidden. It also appeared in the videogames Driver: You Are the Wheelman" and "Midtown Madness 2.
• The building can be destroyed by player in the video game Strike Commander.
• The building is frequently featured in the WB series Charmed along with other popular San Francisco landmarks as an intermission between scenes.
• The building appeared in a key scene in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, appearing to separate two main characters (one of whom would be revealed to be a villain a moment later).
• The Transamerica Pyramid makes an appearance as an Alliance-controlled building in the Sierra game Manhunter 2: San Francisco.
• The building is also featured in Christopher Moore's novel, Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story.
• The building is a destroyable landmark in Godzilla: Unleashed, the videogame.
• Fritz Leiber award-winning novel Our Lady of Darkness (1977) features the building as a source of megapolisomantic power.
• Strangely, even thought it was completed in 1972, the 1974 film "The Towering Inferno", which is about the tallest skyscraper in San Francisco, the Transamerica Building is not seen. They probably did that so they wouldn't have anything to compare the tower in the movie, theGlass Tower, to other buildings in San Francisco.
• The 1980's movie "View to a Kill" depicted James Bond (Roger Moore) barely missing the antenna of the peak of the pyramid while being suspended from a blimp.
• The building exterior is recreated as part of the decorative skyline in the Call of Duty 4 map "Chinatown"

See also

• 49-Mile Scenic Drive
• List of tallest buildings in San Francisco

External links

• The Pyramid Center official website
• SF Gate article on the Pyramid
• Transamerica Pyramid at Structurae

• SkyscraperPage – side-by-side diagrams of SF skyscrapers
• Building Profile at PropertyShark