A sculptural tower designed for America’s largest bank

With its crystalline bay window facade and irregular setbacks, 555 California Street—formerly the global headquarters of Bank of America—emerges as an architectural centerpiece of San Francisco’s financial district. The office complex consists of a 52-story tower and a glass-enclosed banking hall, atop a four-level base nestled into a steep street-level grade. At 779 feet, it stood unrivaled in height upon its 1969 completion and remains a towering presence in San Francisco’s skyline.

SOM; Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons; and consulting architect Pietro Belluschi collaborated on design. Defined by vertical repetition, the skyscraper features faceted bronze-tinted bay windows—a nod to a classic feature of San Francisco architecture—that give a distinct rhythm to a facade clad in polished red Carnelian granite. At once smooth and textured, this continuous, shimmering surface moderates the scale of the building, while upper-floor setbacks underscore the tower’s sculptural quality, evoking the jagged rock formations of the Sierra Nevada.

Inside, a column-free open floor plan provides office spaces that are easily reconfigurable to meet evolving needs. On the upper floors, executive suites and a restaurant once provided amenities for senior banking leadership.

Optimizing space and function through strategic planning

The tower is situated at the southwest corner of the block, yielding half of the site to a granite-paved plaza that connects to 345 Montgomery—the former flagship banking hall for Bank of America. Set back nearly 150 feet 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, a cafeteria, 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 that features galleries on two levels. 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 2 million square feet.

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