HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Discussion Forums > Buildings & Architecture


    Transamerica Pyramid in the SkyscraperPage Database

Building Data Page   • Comparison Diagram   • San Francisco Skyscraper Diagram

Map Location
San Francisco Projects & Construction Forum

Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #101  
Old Posted Oct 12, 2022, 10:37 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #102  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2022, 11:41 AM
MyCitySFO MyCitySFO is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: South Bay
Posts: 89
Awesime post. Interesting to see Salesforce completely block out 181 Fremont or is it Transamerica doing it? Neat angle for sure.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #103  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2022, 5:34 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #104  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2022, 7:19 PM
The North One's Avatar
The North One The North One is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 5,489
One of the best skyscrapers. Iconic, unique and beautiful
__________________
Spawn of questionable parentage!
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #105  
Old Posted Dec 4, 2022, 3:31 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Orange crush by SF Lіghts, on Flickr
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #106  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2022, 6:54 PM
precisionlasers precisionlasers is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2022
Posts: 1
Hi,

I'm a new user to this forum. Does anybody know how to get architectural diagrams of this building? I would like to make a 3d model of the pyramid for an art project.

Thanks for any help.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #107  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2022, 11:18 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Quote:
Originally Posted by precisionlasers View Post
Hi,

I'm a new user to this forum. Does anybody know how to get architectural diagrams of this building? I would like to make a 3d model of the pyramid for an art project.

Thanks for any help.
Here you go.

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?buildingID=1601
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #108  
Old Posted Dec 7, 2022, 4:23 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Quote:
Official Ceremony For $400 Million Transamerica Pyramid Renovation

BY: ANDREW NELSON 5:30 AM ON DECEMBER 7, 2022

SHVO, the new owner of the Transamerica Pyramid and two adjacent buildings, has started renovations of San Francisco’s iconic property with an official ceremony. Though not a traditional groundbreaking event, dirt was shoveled by many important local representatives next to Michael Shvo. Plans for renovating the 50-year-old landmark are designed by Foster + Partners.

...

The master plan for the downtown location is being called The Complex. Along with the iconic Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery Street, SHVO will renovate Two Transamerica at 505 Sansome Street and Three Transamerica at 545 Sansome Street. The properties will be connected with a reimagined Redwood Park, opening up and expanding the existing Redwood Park to cultivate a dynamic and welcoming destination.
https://sfyimby.com/2022/12/official...enovation.html
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #109  
Old Posted Dec 7, 2022, 4:26 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #110  
Old Posted Dec 27, 2022, 2:29 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #111  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2023, 5:54 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #112  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2023, 7:08 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
A couple of nice recent shots, from not super common perspectives:





https://www.instagram.com/fitzsimonsphotography/
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #113  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2023, 11:29 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #114  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2023, 12:58 AM
JManc's Avatar
JManc JManc is online now
Dryer lint inspector
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Houston/ SF Bay Area
Posts: 37,783
Taken from a parking garage near N. Beach.

Reply With Quote
     
     
  #115  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2023, 5:14 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #116  
Old Posted May 2, 2023, 11:53 PM
Charmy2 Charmy2 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2022
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 347
I saw pictures of the building glowing blue a few days ago (similar to the lights on Fox Plaza) and I was wondering if anybody knows if its permanent and like part of the renovation or if it was a one time thing to celebrate like the Warriors or something. Because if it isn't permanent that would be sad because this building despite looking majestic in beautiful day looks really depressing and gloomy at night.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #117  
Old Posted May 31, 2023, 8:56 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Quote:
How a Once-Hated Corporate Emblem Became a Beloved San Francisco Landmark
Written by Julie Zigoris
Published May 29, 2023 • 5:00am



Before the 1972 Transamerica Pyramid became an icon, it was the most-hated project in San Francisco.

Organizations lined up like chess pieces against it: San Francisco’s Planning Department, San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR), the San Francisco Fire Department, the San Francisco Police Department, San Francisco Beautiful, the American Institute of Architects and numerous planning commissioners.

Designer William Pereira’s fame and charisma—he’s one of the few architects to appear on the cover of Time magazine—also wasn’t enough to convince people.

“Save our skyline from the Transamerica Pyramid,” exclaimed flyers protesting the construction of the triangular-shaped piece of San Francisco’s skyline. Allan Jacobs, then-planning director of San Francisco, described it as “an inhuman creation in an urban area that strives to be human and supremely livable.”

Half a century before there was “stop the steal,” there was “stop the shaft”—a slogan used by protestors who wore pyramid-shaped hats and handed out pyramid-shaped cookies (there was a pyramid-shaped cake, too).

The triangular-shaped goodies may have ended up popularizing the spire rather than lampooning it, since the building was a near-immediate success. Hailed as the world’s first modern pyramid, it was referred to as a symbol of San Francisco just a handful of years after it opened, one that was up there with cable cars and Coit Tower.

The 48-floor building cost $35 million to complete and includes a 212-foot unoccupied spire. The fifth floor is the largest, with 21,025 square feet (and the 48th is the smallest, with just 2,025 square feet). In 1987, more than 1,500 people worked in the building representing 50 different firms, including the Transamerica Corporation. The pyramid has a 9-foot foundation, which was the result of a continuous 24-hour concrete pour.

The building has 18 elevators, two of which reach the top floor, and boasts 3,678 windows—but it took less than two years to build, which seems like an unimaginable feat today.

The design was shrunk down from its original proposal, which was a towering 1,040 feet and almost within spitting distance of the 1,070 feet of today’s Salesforce Tower.

The Dutch insurance firm Aegon purchased the Transamerica Pyramid in 1999, and the Transamerican Corporation moved its headquarters to Maryland.

The Pyramid’s Transformation
Before the pyramid’s hate-love relationship with San Franciscans, it stoked controversy in another city—New York—where a similar design had been proposed as the headquarters for ABC.

“ABC, they’re a bunch of cowards,” said Michael Shvo, the developer who purchased the Transamerica Pyramid for a cool $650 million in 2020. “They said the design was too bold.”

In the ultimate embarrassment, San Francisco scored for itself a landmark, while ABC later ended up demolishing the building it constructed instead of the pyramid.

An exhibition at the Queens Museum titled “Never Built New York” included a model of Pereira’s original 1963 design and noted that the never-realized ABC headquarters was proposed for Columbus Avenue, across the street from Lincoln Center.

In one of history’s many coincidences, Pereira’s futurist building ended up adjacent to a different Columbus Avenue—San Francisco’s main thoroughfare through North Beach.

The pyramid rose a floor a week over Montgomery Street, opening in 1972 across the street from the flatiron building where the Transamerica Corporation had its roots. (A.P. Giannini’s multipronged financial empire eventually became both Transamerica and the Bank of America, and today houses a Church of Scientology.)

Even though the Transamerica Pyramid no longer serves as the corporate headquarters of its namesake, the insurance and investment company uses the building’s shape in its logo as a nod to its famed association.

San Franciscans surveyed today uniformly approve of the tower. “It’s iconic,” said Mila Shimko, who has been inside the tower on the 14th floor and remarked on the incredible views. Another drew a comparison with the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty—structures also hated before becoming beloved. At 853 feet, the Transamerica Pyramid was the tallest structure in San Francisco when it was built, a title it held for nearly five decades before the Salesforce Tower snatched it.

“It’s a landmark, and it’s recognized,” said Alicia Perez, who works as a sales and marketing manager for Giuliani Construction and Restoration. “If it was gone, people would notice something lacking.”

While the building is not currently open to the public, some 30 people come in every day requesting a tour, according to an attendant working the front desk. And elementary schoolchildren have been visiting the pyramid’s 36th floor as part of a citywide program.

“I remember my field trips as a kid,” said Russell Eisenman, the assistant general manager of the building. “Can you imagine coming to the pyramid on a school trip? What an incredible memory.”

...

Yet despite being such a visual and popular landmark, there’s currently no way for the public to access the tower. There used to be an observation deck on the building’s top floor, but it closed in the 1990s. The appropriately named Vertigo restaurant, an upscale eatery at the base of the pyramid, has also long since closed. And while Shvo has announced extensive plans for upgrades, many of them will be membership-based or available only for tenants.

Shvo does promise, however, a redwood-filled park at the pyramid’s base that will be open to the public. But we’re still keeping our fingers crossed for a revival of Duncan Nichol's famed saloon for a third round.
https://sfstandard.com/arts-culture/...isco-landmark/
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #118  
Old Posted May 31, 2023, 8:57 PM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #119  
Old Posted Oct 10, 2023, 5:33 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Some nice shots by my boy Marcus from this past weekend:







https://www.instagram.com/p/CyMMwi8SDrH/
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #120  
Old Posted Oct 10, 2023, 5:50 AM
homebucket homebucket is online now
A Man In Dandism
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Bay
Posts: 8,720
Some nice shots by my girl Jenny from this past weekend:



Bonus shots of Alcatraz and Coit Tower:





https://www.instagram.com/jennytranphoto/
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Discussion Forums > Buildings & Architecture
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 7:58 AM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.