Although the Salesforce Tower snatched the crown as the city’s tallest building, the newly renovated Transamerica Pyramid showed San Francisco who the real boss of the skyline is Thursday. A spectacular laser-light projection graced the 853-foot icon’s east facade, with the Thievery Corporation performing live in the redesigned redwood grove below.
It was all in celebration of the skyscraper’s grand reopening. Under the canopy of towering redwoods, both illuminated from below and strung with lights, guests sampled skewers of grilled chicken thighs topped with a heap of leek and coconut slaw and croquettes filled with curry-spiced fig jam and a shower of Parmesan — an indication of owner Michael Shvo’s aspirations for the building to become a food destination.
There was comparatively little talk about how the Pyramid, bought by Shvo in 2020 for $650 million, is trying to sign commercial leases at previously unheard-of rates for San Francisco. Even less about the controversies dogging owner Shvo’s other properties, likely a relief for the building’s owner considering how the legal drama literally loomed over the ceremonies earlier in the day.
After a local media outlet erroneously indicated that the party was open to the general public, hundreds of people registered last-minute, and many succeeded in getting in. By 7 p.m., lines stretched north and south from the entrance at Mark Twain Alley and Sansome Street, with queues eventually wrapping around the corner. The wait for a cocktail at the bars was almost as long.
Miko Marker, a developer who builds premanufactured housing in the Central Valley, had never been inside the building before. “It’s bumping,” she said of the party. “It reminds me of Burning Man.”
It was a very different scene from the tightly orchestrated parade of VIPs who spoke at a ribbon-cutting Thursday morning, among them Mayor London Breed, former Mayor Willie Brown, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Shvo, and Norman Foster, the Bach-loving architect the developer hired to reimagine the complex. Foster’s redesign doubled the amount of public space while leaving the Pyramid’s pale concrete exterior untouched.
Partygoers milled about the redwood grove, now filled with animal sculptures, and stepped inside a first-floor gallery to view intricate scale models of Foster + Partners’ work worldwide. That exhibit, “The Vertical City,” shows off the starchitect’s affection for latticework — and phallic symbols — in his designs. (Apple’s doughnut-shaped headquarters in Menlo Park, Foster’s other well-known Bay Area commission, was curiously excluded.)
Initially scheduled for 8:30 p.m., the light show began half an hour later, backed by the genre-defying duo Thievery Corporation’s blend of trip-hop, world music, and downtempo EDM. Multicolored lasers danced over the building in pulsating geometric forms, with a precision that ran nearly from base to beacon, including one of the Pyramid’s architectural “shoulders.”
Although many attendees seemed not to have heard of Shvo, they were hoping for something dramatic — something that would eclipse the “Eye of Sauron” LED effect that Salesforce Tower has done at Halloween.
“We totally need more of this,” said Nate Payne, a graphic designer who grew up in the Fillmore. Ticking off places like Dubai and Shanghai where lit-up towers are commonplace, he added, “It’s like we’re playing catch-up here in the world’s most beautiful city.”
