99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-02- 99% 180

Episode Date: September 24, 2010

In the beginning, former AIA-SF president Henrik Bull and the Transamerica Pyramid did not get along. The building was an affront to late 1960’s modernist ideals. It was silly. It looked like a dunce cap. Its large scale had no … Continue reading →

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My name is Henrik Bull. Henrik Bull became president of the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1968. And we're having this conversation at the base of the Trans-America Pyramid. Construction of the Trans-America Pyramid began in 1969. Looking up into infinity as the building comes to a point, it had 150 feet of noise. It's, this is not the best view of the building.

In the beginning, Henrik Bull and the Trans-America Pyramid did not get along. In the San Francisco AIA opposed its construction. Buildings should make sense. There's nothing about this building that makes sense. It was sort of a silly design, DUNSCAP. We thought the pyramid shape was just nothing, but a, let's call it advertising simple. The top third of it is just plain air. In the era of modern architecture, building a couple hundred feet of symbol, it's just

not considered proper or immoral. In an article in late 2009, San Francisco Chronicle Urban Design writer John King summarized several of the contemporary criticisms of the Trans-America Pyramids proposed design. Putting it in San Francisco would be no less reprehensible than destroying the Grand Canyon, an inhuman creation, a second-class world's fair space needle. Venice and Lumin John Burton said the pyramid would rape the skyline. Geez. Oh my God. It seemed to violate the whole purpose of zoning an urban planning.

The surrounding buildings were no more than three stories tall. This was definitely not the vision of that neighborhood. But over the course of 40 years, something happened. Some people have never lost their hatred for the Trans-American Pyramid, but others like Henrik Buhl and the AIA San Francisco who recently voted at one of the top commercial buildings in the city have done a complete 180 and it all seems to depend on where you're standing. You could almost say the further you get away from it, the better it looks, but you know that every sort of nasty. It's only a little nasty and

funny and true. When the building was completed many of us who had opposed it realized that you know this sort of a neat building on the skyline, especially as a silhouette on the sun is going down, it's really quite graceful. The taller building since really are pretty dull and this cottonose wasn't dull. I don't remember any discussion of what it's going to look like looking down Columbus Avenue. Columbus Avenue is a diagonal street and a broad street. The Trans-American building is right at the end. I don't know if you know the term vanishing point in perspective.

Everything goes and diagonals to a point. And in a way, you tilt that vanishing point up vertically and there's the Trans-America building. It just is a big surprise and had that been a conventional modern building of the time, it would have been a tragedy really. I would say it's one of my favorite buildings, not close up. How it meets the ground, I don't think I ever really got solved. The triangle shapes and the columns are awkward, and if you look up at the building from below, the spacing of the windows has to be pretty weird to accommodate that pyramid shape, but still. So a complete 180, I think that's really impressive. I think that shows strength of character on your part.

I had the same conversation with John King. That's the aforementioned San Francisco Chronicle architecture critic, whose article on this you should really go read. And he was quite surprised when I said that we didn't understand the problem and we were wrong. And he said, gosh, I don't think I remember it architect saying that before. 99% Invisible is produced by me Roman Mars with support from Lunar. It's a project of KALW, the American Institute of Architects San Francisco in the Center for

Architecture and Design. Find out more at 99%invisible.org.