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check one two three four this is ninety nine percent invisible

I want you to give your name and where we are.

I'm Roman Mars.

My name is Henrick Bull.

Henrick Bull became president of the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute

of Architects in 1968. And we're having this conversation at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid.

Construction of the Transamerica Pyramid began in 1969.

Looking up into infinity as the building comes to a point,

850 feet above us.

It's, uh, this is not the best view of the building.

In the beginning, Henric Bull and the Transamerica Pyramid did not get along and the San Francisco AIA opposed its

construction. Buildings should make sense. There's nothing about this

building that makes sense. There was sort of a silly design, Dunskap. We thought that the pyramid shape was just nothing but a, let's call it advertising simple. The top third of it is just plain air.

In the era of modern architecture,

building a couple of hundred feet of symbol

was just not considered proper or even moral.

...