SAN FRANCISCO | 101 California Street | 600 FT / 183 M | 48 FLOORS | 1982
One of the better buildings by Philip Johnson during this era (much more in common with say Transco than AT&T), 101 California Street anchors the lower end of California as it approaches the intersection with Market. Despite its height (3rd tallest in the city when completed, now tied for 6th), it's quite buried in the skyline and difficult to appreciate from a distance.
The tower is multi-faceted in plan to the extent that from a distance it reads as a cylinder. These serrations in reflective glass, combined with adding some setbacks toward the top of the tower (not unlike what was done by SOM on the BofA up the street) create a visual play with light in stark contrast to the typical Market Street granite-clad boxes.
One other curious fact about the plan of this tower is that the 'cylinder' doesn't go all the way around. There is a small section cut out on the California Street side of the building. The resultant flat facade is given a light colored precast cladding to match the base. It's a subtle and somewhat odd cut, but doesn't take away from the overall form of the building.
Johnson has also done something interesting at the base, by starting the office floors some 60ft up, but carrying down the forest of columns into a clear glass prism lobby. It's not terribly engaging at the street, but is more visually interesting than just crashing the building form onto a barren plaza.
A stair-stepped garden was re-done to honor those who died in a mass shooting in the building that occurred in 1993.
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I don't like the building. I don't like the odd, asymmetrical serrations and, when I think of it, the first thing that comes to mind is this:
Quote:
At 2:57 p.m. on July 1, 1993, 55-year-old businessman Gian Luigi Ferri entered an office building at 101 California Street in San Francisco, and made his way to the 34th floor and the offices of the law firm of Pettit & Martin. (Ferri, who had been a client of the firm at least ten years prior to the shootings, nursed an irrational grudge against Pettit & Martin for many years.) Exiting the elevator on the 34th floor, Ferri donned a pair of ear protectors and began to open fire with a pair of TEC-9 handguns and a .45 pistol. After roaming this floor he then moved down one floor through an internal staircase and continued shooting. The carnage was continued on several floors before Ferri eventually shot himself fatally as San Francisco Police closed in. Eight people were killed in the attack, and six others injured.[1]
This incident has had a pretty profound effect also on the politics of the state in that, combined with the Moscone-Milk murders, it converted Sen. Feinstein into a strong advocate of gun control which is something of an anomaly in her otherwise fairly conservative (for a Democrat) political philosophy.
I actually don't like this one; neither the serrations nor the basecut. They tried to snazz up a cylinder, but it all turns out kind of awkwardly. I think the cut-out at the base is too tall, and the serrations too close and too many. Nothing unifies the design.
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I wouldn't mind having an office here as it's a nice class A building, and i like the plaza and tiered gardens. It's a good place to hang and/or eat lunch outside. But architecturally, it's not one of my favorite buildings.
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