For 170 years, the site of the Transamerica Pyramid has been a witness to and a catalyst of San Francisco’s social and cultural history. Irma Delmonte, architectural researcher at Foster + Partners, considers how this unique history was centralised in the developing masterplan and restoration of the site.

The story of the Transamerica Pyramid springs from this culture, beginning with a vessel called Niantic. Once a whaling boat and a storeship, Niantic sunk offshore at what is now the intersection of Clay and Montgomery Streets, the current site of Transamerica. The rest of the ship, no longer needed for its original purpose, was creatively re-used as a warehouse, store and offices – an early example of a cost-effective, sustainable and adaptive way of building.  During a series of fires between 1850 and1852, it repeatedly burned and was rebuilt as the Niantic Hotel, looking less like a ship each time. The hull of the Niantic has been rediscovered several times during the last century: firstly, after a city-wide fire in 1906, then again in 1978 during an excavation for the Mark Twain Alley (now at the Redwood Park). Its site, where the Transamerica Pyramid now stands, is marked by a plaque as a California Historical Landmark and a portion of Niantic's hull and rudder currently reside in the San Francisco Maritime Museum. It was on this site that Montgomery Block and, eventually, the Transamerica, was built.

In the late 1870s, the business centre of San Francisco shifted south down to Market Street and a new era of tenants moved in. Thousands of writers, painters, photographers, sculptures, filmmakers, and musicians rented studios in Montgomery Block from the 1870s until the building’s demolition in the 1959. During those decades, Montgomery Block became the bohemian centre of the West Coast, establishing an artistic hub never seen before in the city.

Montgomery Block became the bohemian centre of the West Coast, establishing an artistic hub never seen before in the city.

Located on the ground floor of Montgomery Block, Coppa’s restaurant was the most famous bohemian haunt. The walls were covered in murals including one titled Bohemian Wall of Fame by Californian artist Xavier Martinez (1869-1943), which depicted famous writers and artists throughout history, ranging from Dante in the Thirteenth Century to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and even contemporary locals like the American poet and playwright George Sterling (1869-1926). These murals were the manifesto of this leading bohemian generation, alongside a prolific production of poetry magazines, photographs, and music. In San Francisco, writers and artists were allowed room to breathe; it was the spirit of bohemianism held within the walls of Montgomery Block that cultivated such spaciousness.

Foreshadowing its high-rise successor and the present-day commission of an innovative studio like Foster + Partners, the Montgomery was architecturally and technologically advanced. For this reason, it was one of the few buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed most of downtown San Francisco. It continued to attract artists throughout (and despite) the Great Depression; Rivera and Kahlo resided there; the Beat generation followed. Montgomery’s spirit of anarchy, of countercultural radicalism, had been present from its beginning, as captured in the work of Twain – until the block was demolished in 1959 to build a parking lot.

The Pyramid received a favourable response from the Transamerica Corporation. However, the citizens of San Francisco were slower to agree. Dozens of residents protested the construction zone in pyramidal dunce caps; the Chronicle’s architecture critic testified against the building at City Hall; San Francisco’s own city planner called the tower ‘an inhumane creation’, ‘hideous nonsense’, ‘authentic architectural butchery’, and ‘an affront to San Francisco.’

Today, of course, the Transamerica Pyramid is an icon within San Francisco’s cultural and architectural heritage. This is arguably due to the clarity of its original design. Pereira’s goal was to create a building of simple, classical form that delivered a graceful silhouette with minimal obstruction to the skyline. At that time, more standardised office buildings in American cities were characterised by a repetitive fenestration system.  Rejecting the ‘notion that all buildings must be a cube’, Pereira departed from the common rectangular shape of International Style and Modernist traditions found in San Francisco’s Financial District.

Pereira’s goal was to create a building of simple, classical form that delivered a graceful silhouette with minimal obstruction to the skyline.

As shown in the pioneering Willis Faber and IBM projects of the 1970s, Foster + Partners actively pursues research and development programmes through its commissions. Over the decades, as technologies and agendas have evolved, this has manifested itself in different ways. For example, the diagrid structure developed for the Hearst Tower in New York (a steel-core building with a diagonal perimeter system forming four-storey-high triangular frames) emerged as a very practical solution because it provides greater strength and greater structural redundancy.

Completed in 2006, the tower is the headquarter of the Hearst Corporation and used 20 per cent less steel than a conventional post-and-beam structure – a saving of approximately 2,000 tonnes of steel. It was also designed to use 25 per cent less energy than it would had it minimally complied with the respective state and city energy codes. This has earned it a gold certification under the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). It was the first occupied building in New York to receive this certification and since earning that prestigious honour, the building also received LEED Platinum certification in 2012 for operations and maintenance. These achievements reinforce Foster + Partners’ observation that it is often owner-occupiers – of the likes of Willis Faber, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, Commerzbank and, in Pereira’s case, Transamerica – who can be relied upon to pioneer innovation, often setting new standards that will later be adopted by the market.

The team has worked on the masterplan of the Transamerica site including The Pyramid itself (One Transamerica), 505 and 545 Sansome Street (Two and Three Transamerica, the former also designed by Pereira), and Redwood Park. Site-specific solutions were implemented to sustain a holistic balance between the cultural, architectural, and environmental elements across these buildings and the urban space between.

Inside the Transamerica Pyramid, for example, Foster + Partners’ design draws upon the building’s unique structural geometry and scale by carefully restoring the historic lobby. Decades of cladding were stripped away to reveal the original beams and cross-bracing beneath – a move which both reclaims valuable space and distils the essence of Pereira’s vision. An indoor-outdoor approach, suitable for San Francisco’s climate, was also adopted. The existing colonnade – made of triangular modules – was made visible inside the arrival area; a bridge has also been installed to re-connect the interior lobby with the Redwood Park outside. Through this restoration, users are brought closer to both Pereira’s design and the natural world.

The Foster + Partners team endeavoured to recreate a neighbourhood that both acknowledged the rich history of the site and brought contemporary values and technology to it.

The grand geometric scale of Pereira’s project appears at all stages of the design process. The interiors of the Sky Bar on L48, for example, incorporate pyramidal and triangular details in the edges of the counter, stools, and lighting fixtures. Materials have also been considered; quartz precast cladding and bronze metal comprise the building’s façade, both evoking and updating the 1970s detailing and harking back to the bohemian glamour of Coppa’s in Montgomery Block.

The Foster + Partners team endeavoured to recreate a neighbourhood that both acknowledged the rich history of the site and brought contemporary values and technology to it.

Outside, Foster + Partners paid close attention to the original plans for Redwood Park and, consequently, proposed an urban space that reconnected the separate buildings of Transamerica Pyramid Center. The overall strategy was based on three connected values: heritage, environmental conservation, and social interaction. Firstly, the landscape team brought back the original layout of the park as sketched by Pereira and his colleague, landscape architect Anthony Guzzardo – honouring the ground-level history of the site as much as the iconic pyramidal structure above.

Understanding both Pereira’s vision and the contemporary San Francisco climate, Redwood Park – with its famous redwood trees – was enhanced through the proposed planting of native vegetation. This increased the ecological diversity index of the habitat which will promote the ecological succession of local flora and fauna in the coming years. This has a wonderful effect on people, too. Not only does the park provide shade and naturally filtered air, but it creates valuable space for socialization, meditation, and re-connection with nature.

These sustainable, contextual and climate-responsive interventions combine to create a unique project that considers sustainability in truly holistic terms. People, place, and nature are carefully balanced; the vital relationship between the social and the ecological is reintroduced at the heart of San Francisco. Whether enjoying a Pisco Punch in the Sky Bar or having lunch in Redwood Park, users can access a deeper appreciation of the Transamerica site, feel emotionally attuned with their environment, and, consequently, with themselves and others.