Transamerica Pyramid

The Shape the City Hated

The Transamerica Pyramid opened in 1972 and the city spent years trying to stop it. Critics found a way to work the architect's surname into a nickname no guidebook will print, and a petition to halt the project gathered thousands of signatures before a single panel went up. People did not want a pyramid in San Francisco. They wanted the flat-topped skyline they already knew, and the argument over the shape ran for nearly a decade. The reason it tapers turns out to be the least glamorous one possible: a tower that narrows as it climbs throws a far smaller shadow than a slab of the same height, so daylight still reaches the street. That was the case Transamerica's leadership made for the design William Pereira drew. Fifty years later, the architecture critic John King called it an architectural icon of the best sort, one that fits its location and gets better with age. **Stand at the corner of Clay and Montgomery and look up.** Look at the way the four faces taper to the point.