555 California Street
- Architects
- Pietro Belluschi William Wurster
- Year
- 1969
- City
- San Francisco, CA
555 California Street, originally the Bank of America Center, is a 52-story, 779-foot tower completed in 1969 as the bank's world headquarters, meant to project the wealth and power of what was then America's largest bank. Nicknamed "Triple Five" or "Triple Nickel," it stayed the tallest building west of the Mississippi until San Francisco's own Transamerica Pyramid overtook it in 1972.
the building
A committee of firms. The design credit is layered: Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill led the work, with architect Pietro Belluschi consulting and San Francisco's H. J. Brunnier Associates handling the structural engineering behind the 52 stories.
Records by inches. At 779 feet, the tower is exactly one foot taller than One Worldwide Plaza in New York and one foot shorter than the 68th-tallest building in the United States, a reminder of how closely supertall rankings are contested.
the architect
Pietro Belluschi consulted on the design; the architecture itself was led by William Wurster's firm, Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons, working alongside Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.
significance
Bank of America's headquarters until the 1998 NationsBank merger moved the company to Charlotte, North Carolina, the tower remains the fourth-tallest building in San Francisco and was, in 2013, the largest by floor area. It is now owned by Vornado Realty Trust and the Trump Organization.
nearby
- Commercial Union Assurance Building
- Russ Building
- San Francisco Curb Exchange Building
- Merchants Exchange Building
- San Francisco Fire Department Engine Co. Number 2
- Italian American Bank