The Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery Street in San Francisco sits on layered history: the shoreline of Yerba Buena Cove, where a Mexican pueblo was founded in 1834, the buried hull of the 1849 whaling ship Niantic, and the Montgomery Block, which survived the 1906 earthquake before being torn down for a parking lot in 1959. After 1906, A.P. Giannini ran his Bank of Italy from the site. CEO John Beckett later demanded a pyramid to let light reach the street, and architect William Pereira proposed 1,150 feet before the city capped him at 853. In December 1969 a slip-formed foundation nine feet thick was poured nonstop for three days, and onlookers tossed thousands of dollars in coins into the concrete.

Critics called it Pereira’s Prick, but the crushed quartz facade and 3,678 windows won people over. Many windows pivot 360 degrees so they can be cleaned from inside, and two exterior wings hold an elevator shaft and a stairwell with a smoke tower. Only two of 18 elevators reach the 48th floor, and above it the top 212 feet is a hollow spire climbed by a 60 degree stairway. Aegon bought Transamerica in 1999, and by 2011 the company had left the building entirely while keeping its silhouette as the logo.

• The Crown Jewel beacon at the peak is lit at Christmas, on Independence Day, and on the 9/11 anniversary
• A virtual observation deck with joystick-controlled spire cameras replaced the 27th floor deck
• Redwood Park holds transplanted redwoods, a Jumping Frog fountain, and a plaque to rat-catching dogs Bummer and Lazarus
• The USGS lists it among 39 high-rises with welds of the type the 1994 Northridge quake showed to be brittle
• After Aegon sold it for 650 million dollars in 2020, Norman Foster led a renovation, and a Cyprus-based firm bought it in April 2026