Archinect - News

Foster + Partners' Three Transamerica redesign wins approval in San Francisco

2023-12-21T15:18:00-05:00

New details about the planned redevelopment of the San Francisco Transamerica Center from Foster + Partners have been released following the unanimous approval of the Three Transamerica expansion plans by the city’s Parks Department and Planning Commission.

Renderings included in an Instagram announcement of the approvals from developer SHVO released yesterday show plans for a 220-foot horizontal expansion of the mixed-use former 545 Sansome St. property that results in a distinctive glass curtain wall at the base of the building’s north and west orientations. The building dates from 1930 and was originally designed by Willis Polk & Company.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by SHVO (@shvo)

Per SF YIMBY, city planners acknowledged the distinctiveness of the character of their intervention’s scope, saying it was “recognizable as a modern intervention consistent with other newer buildings in the area” but that the demolition would not result in the removal of...

LACMA makeover: Five active cranes signal midway point for $750 million Zumthor project

2022-07-13T12:20:00-04:00

A significant next step has been taken in the construction process that will eventually culminate in Peter Zumthor’s brand new David Geffen Galleries building for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as it inches closer to its anticipated 2024 completion date.

According to Urbanize Los Angeles, two new tower cranes are now in operation at the site, in addition to the three that were brought online back in October. The project is now approximately at its midway point after a delayed start in 2020.

Image courtesy LACMA

LACMA says it has recently completed concrete pours on the western portion of the mat foundation for the estimated $750–$900 million project, which replaces William Pereira’s 1965 “floating campus” trio of buildings (and their 1986 Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer-designed extension) in favor of the controversially smaller, new two-story building that bestrides Wilshire Boulevard next to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Previously on Archinect: In Los Angeles, institutions build, but...

The 11 most threatened modern sites across the U.S.

2022-04-29T15:44:00-04:00

In response to the recent surprise demolition of Marcel Breuer’s Geller I house on Long Island, modernist conservation group Docomomo US has released its first-ever list of the 11 most threatened modern sites in the United States.

Working on the advice of its chapter members, the group selected 11 sites across the country in danger of seeing the same fate as Breuer’s first post-war residential project beginning with Miami’s Marine Stadium, which is still currently awaiting word on a publicly-funded restoration effort.

Washington state was a popular location, with Space Needle architect John Graham Jr.’s Lloyd Center and the Weyerhaeuser International Headquarters both making the list.

Massachusetts is also well-represented with the “Long House” prototype cotta...

Foster + Partners unveils renderings for new Transamerica Pyramid Center retrofit

2022-03-31T18:04:00-04:00

Foster + Partners has shared an update to its recently announced retrofit of William Pereira’s iconic Transamerica Pyramid Center in San Francisco.

New renderings appear to show fresh and open office spaces upgraded for workers’ comfort and workplace flexibility in addition to an on-site members club called ‘CORE,’ a top-floor cocktail bar, wellness area, retail, and several ground-level interventions meant to transform the block-sized development into a historically-sensitive connector of the city.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

The project represents the largest renovation in the building’s 50-year history and will encompass the revitalization of the adjacent Redwood Park in addition to the pyramid’s refurbishments and a complete overhaul of neighboring 545 Sansome Street into a “contemporary high-design office building.”

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Historian and critic Paul Goldberger, who is an advisor to dev...

San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid is getting a makeover thanks to Foster + Partners

2022-03-29T19:59:00-04:00

Owner Michael Shvo and his partners have hired world-renowned architect Norman Foster to redesign the iconic tower’s interiors and plan to invest $250 million to renovate the 1972 building and expand its Redwood Park. The owners also plan to roughly double the size of neighboring 545 Sansome St. and add a new facade to create a modern office building at the cost of around $150 million.

Work is expected to begin within the week and take around a year to be completed. The project will include the expansion of Redwood Park and, potentially, the adjacent 545 Sansome Street, which will be rebranded as 3 Transamerica pending approval by the city.

Previously on Archinect: San Francisco’s iconic Transamerica pyramid is for sale

“We want to make this place a focal center of downtown, and make sure people come here not only to work,” Transamerica Pyramid owner Michael Shvo explained to the San Francisco Chronicle. “It will not only transform the interior of the building but the landscape and the exterior and bring life to the entire site.”

“It’s about responding to a very specific climate of a city,” Norman Foster said in a publicity video released by Shvo's company. “It’s about health; it’s about sustainability; it’s about green.”

Video courtesy SHVO on Vimeo.

Cranes have risen at the site of LACMA's upcoming David Geffen Galleries

2021-10-05T17:29:00-04:00

A year after we last checked, a trio of tower cranes has risen at the former site of LACMA's lost William Pereira- and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer-designed buildings, showing the most visible signs of progress on a controversial $750-million remodel of the Mid-Wilshire campus.

The heavily criticized Peter Zumthor-designed project is expected to be completed in 2024. Urbanize Los Angeles highlights a report that cites internal emails between Los Angeles County officials warning that the final cost of the project could rise to as high as $900 million. This coupled with the museum’s existing financial troubles is a cause for major concern. However, the site of recent construction activity is a positive sign.

Previously on Archinect: LACMA Set to Reopen Amidst a Year of Construction, COVID Lockdown and Harsh Criticism

The construction process for the new David Geffen Galleries began in 2020 with the demolition of four older buildings designed by William Pereira and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer.

LACMA's demolished buildings will live on thanks to this Los Angeles artist

2021-08-02T14:23:00-04:00

The proposed installation is the work of Cayetano Ferrer, a Los Angeles-based artist who has long had an interest in the ways in which issues of design and memory intersect. It is being executed in collaboration with landscape architect Bron Ruf. Ferrer acknowledges that working with fragments of a building whose demolition was loudly contested and for which many Angelenos felt a deep nostalgia is a loaded thing.

The Pereira-designed pavillions have been at the center of the doomed effort to save LACMA's original La Brea campus from what critics say is an unnecessary and expensive redevelopment campaign. Ferrer shares he got the idea while working on a conservation research project at LACMA's Art + Tech Lab in the midst of the debate over the beloved modernist buildings was reaching its conclusion. Ruf is currently a vice president at the landscaping firm Moss and Associates.

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The demolished pieces will be reassembled and installed in a new pocket park adjacent to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Some of the fragments will be exhibited in a one-day show at the Commonwealth and Council gallery in Pasadena.

You can read Carolina Miranda's full interview with Ferrer here.

William Pereira-designed Hunt Branch Library in Orange County to be renovated

2020-06-10T12:17:00-04:00

The William Pereira-design Hunt Branch Library in Fullerton, California has received funds for a new renovation. Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silvia issued a $2.5 million budget request in 2019 which has since been approved and allocated to the City of Fullerton to be utilized in the renovation of the historic library.

The Hunt Branch Library was designated a local landmark by the Fullerton City Council back in November 2018, writes Save The Hunt Library, a group of Fullerton citizens who have been advocating for the preservation of the building.

"I am very proud to have worked with the state to secure $2.5 million for a future renovated Hunt Branch Library," said Assemblywoman Quirk-Silvia in a statement. "As a classroom teacher, and former City Council Member, I have always prioritized community spaces, literacy, and the arts."

The renovation project comes as several of Pereira's other notable works, including the original Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus and an extension to T...

Demolition of William Pereira-designed buildings gets underway at LACMA

2020-01-14T13:56:00-05:00

Demolition has started to take place at the existing Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (LACMA) complex, where a collection of buildings designed by William Pereira and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates are expected to give way for a new structure designed by Atelier Peter Zumthor.

According to Urbanize.la, the institution began to demolish the existing complex as the new year got under way. The existing collection of Late Modernist and Postmodern buildings will be cleared to make room for a new single-level gallery space designed by Zumthor set to span over Wilshire Boulevard to the south.

The controversial plan for the 350,000-squar...

LACMA fundraising effort stalls as museum turns into a ghost town

2019-11-14T15:45:00-05:00

Money just isn't coming in like it used to. At least, that's the case for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where efforts to raise $650 million to fund a new Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed expansion have hit a rough patch.

Christopher Knight, American art critic for The Los Angeles Times, provides an update on the fundraising efforts aimed at bringing the contentious (and by Knight's analysis, deeply flawed) LACMA replacement proposal to life. Knight explains that fundraising for the new museum is behind schedule and shows no signs of improvement. To make matters worse, the needed total has unofficially increased by $100 million, according to anonymous sources.

In his Op-Ed, Knight writes, "Over the past 16 months, Los Angeles County Museum of Art fundraising to erect a controversial new building, replacing most of its Wilshire Boulevard campus, has virtually ground to a halt. Four-fifths of the $650 million needed had been pledged by summer 2018, but next to nothing has been ...

San Francisco’s iconic Transamerica pyramid is for sale

2019-08-20T14:00:00-04:00

The Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco’s second-tallest building and an icon of the city’s financial might for four decades, is being marketed for sale for the first time. “Right now, San Francisco has a very robust office real estate market,” Jay Orlandi, chief administrative officer at Transamerica, said in a statement. “We are exploring options for a possible 100% interest sale of the property, with Transamerica retaining naming and branding rights.”

The 853-foot, William Pereira-designed pyramidal skyscraper reigned as San Francisco’s tallest tower for more than 30 years before it was dethroned by the Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects-designed Salesforce Tower in 2018.

Built in 1972, the Brutalist-style Transamerica building features a four-sided pyramidal form wrapped in repeating bands of modular concrete window frames, and is capped by a soaring pointed top that is illuminated in a variety of colors throughout the year. The top one-third of the tower includes a pair of monolithic elevator shafts that break with the building’s otherwise pyramidal form.

Though originally disliked due to its shape and height, the tower eventually became a symbol of the city of San Francisco and has adorned corporate logos, tourist memorabilia, and other ephemeral media symbolizing the city for decades. The base of the tower is marked by Redwood Park, a pocket park designed by landscape architect Tom Galli that includes a series of redwood trees tr...

LAX ranked worst airport in the world; Safdie's new Singapore airport is best

2019-06-12T16:47:00-04:00

There are uglier airports and airports with fewer amenities; there are airports that are older and airports that are more rundown; there are airports with ruder staff and airports with cruder passengers. There are, without doubt, by almost all measures, worse airports in this world. Except by one measure—an exceedingly crucial measure. In fact, behind safety, it’s almost certainly the most important measure: getting in and getting out.

Fodor's Travel Guide has ranked Los Angeles International Airport as the worst airport in the world, due in large part to the "improbably stupid design of its catastrophic horseshoe motor-loop."

The airport's design is attributed to noted Los Angeles architect and urban planner William Pereira, who also designed Don Muang Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, Tehran International Airport in Iran, and Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, among others. The latter site features the same horseshoe design as LAX, while the two other airports are designed along linear, single-loaded paths. Like LAX, however, Don Muang Airport is designed with a double-decker arrangement that separates arrivals and departures. Don't tell Fodor's!

Safdie Architect's Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore is among the best in the world, Image courtesy Wikimedia user Matteo Morando.

The best airport on Fodor's list? Safdie Architects' recently-completed Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore, of course. The 1.46 million-squa...

Will the Los Angeles Times Mirror Square complex become a historic monument?

2018-07-18T15:11:00-04:00

The 378-page recommendation report filed by a group of preservationists, including preservationist Richard Schave and architect and 20th century architectural historian Alan Hess, calls on the city to protect the three most iconic structures of the Los Angeles Times complex [...] Purely from a design perspective, preserving The Times complex — once known as Times Mirror Square — is a difficult proposition.

The Los Angeles Times complex consists of three iconic structures which preservationists are pushing to make historic monuments. There is the 1935 building by Gordon B. Kaufmann featuring “The Times” neon sign and the grand Globe Lobby, Rowland Crawford’s late moderne style Mirror Building built in 1948, and the luxe Times Mirror corporate headquarters designed by William Pereira in 1973. Old enough to be out of date but not enough to necessarily be revered as historic, these structures hang in limbo with an undermined fate in Los Angeles history.

Christopher Hawthorne remembers the LACMA that once was

2015-04-16T17:42:00-04:00

As the museum turns 50 this year and debate continues about LACMA Director Michael Govan's plan to replace the Pereira buildings (and a later addition by Hugh Hardy) with a giant new wing by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, it's worth remembering how the original LACMA campus was greeted — as well as a few things about the Los Angeles into which it was born.

Hippies, craftsmen, and sociologists: "Learning by Doing at the Farm" examines radical education in 1960s southern California

2014-03-14T11:07:00-04:00

It’s easy to forget that Irvine, the minutely planned southern California city awash in tract housing and shopping complexes, was regarded as a pretty radical place at the time of its 1971 incorporation. Almost entirely ranchland up until the mid-1900s, the area that would become Irvine jump-started its urban development as the egg-white to the University of California’s yolk. Looking for land to accommodate expanding enrollment, the UC bought a large chunk of dusty land owned by the Irvine Company to establish a new campus, adding surrounding territory for residential and commercial development. The school isn’t named after the city -- both are named after the Irvine Company. City and campus were master-planned by architect William Pereira, and the University opened in 1965, still largely unfinished but marked by Pereira’s concrete brutalism and Olmsted’s New York Central Park plan.

In the era of this extremely young urban territory, beginning in 1968, UC Irvine began an experiment...