From its crystalline bay window façade to its irregular setbacks, the Bank of America Headquarters rises as a sculptural form in San Francisco’s Financial District. The office complex consists of a 52-story tower and a glass pavilion, atop a four-level base nestled into a steep street-level grade. At 779 feet tall, it was the tallest building in San Francisco when it was completed in 1969 and remains among the city’s tallest today.

Originally built as the headquarters of Bank of America and since renamed 555 California Street, the design was a collaboration between Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; and consulting architect Pietro Belluschi. The skyscraper is characterized by vertical repetition: faceted bronze-tinted bay windows—a regional design tradition—undulate across a facade clad in polished carnelian granite. At once smooth and textured, this continuous, shimmering surface mediates the scale of the building through its rhythm, while upper-floor setbacks underscore the tower’s sculptural quality, evoking the jagged rock formations of the Sierra Nevada.

The tower is situated at the southwest corner of the full-block site, yielding 50 percent of the site to a granite-paved plaza. Nearly 150 feet back from California Street, the clear glass and bronze aluminum main entrance is set in a deep arcade beneath the setback of the tower’s second floor. Below the plaza, a pedestrian concourse with entrances from three streets contains a 220-seat auditorium, and a variety of shops, as well as a connection to the four-story, 30,000-square-foot pavilion at the northeast corner of the site. A three-level parking garage for 420 cars and loading docks are located below the concourse level. The entire complex—from the 1.5 million-square-foot tower to the pavilion and basement levels—totals nearly 1.8 million square feet.

A monument to its picturesque setting, 555 California endures as a Class A office building and as a symbol of San Francisco.