44 Montgomery Street Building

skyscraper
international-style
CA
San Francisco

About the 44 Montgomery Street Building in San Francisco
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The 44 Montgomery Street Building is an International Style skyscraper designed by John Graham & Company, and built between 1964 and 1967 in San Francisco, CA.

44 Montgomery Street Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as Wells Fargo Building.

Its precise street address is 44 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA. You can also find it on the map here.

The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was Revel architecture & design.

Building's timeline

Restoration

2024

Construction begins

1964

Construction completed

1967

years ago

2024

The renovation included a striking art installation in the main lobby. The installation featured colored lights that react to people's movements as they move through the space, turning the lobby into a constantly changing canvas.

A new gym with a yoga room was added, the conference room was equipped with state-of-the-art technology, and the ceilings were left exposed to create an open atmosphere. The architect in charge was Revel architecture & design.

Architect and team

John Graham & Company was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 44 Montgomery Street Building a reality:

Dillingham Construction as the Main Contractor
Wells Fargo Bank as the Main Developer

Architectural Style

The 44 Montgomery Street Building can be categorized as an International Style building.

The international style originated in Europe in the early 20th century, and made its way to the US a couple of decades later when the rise of the Nazi regime forced figures such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, or Mies van der Rohe to flee Europe.

The International Style emerged as a response to the prevailing historicism and ornate architecture styles of the late 19th century, which according to a younger generation of architects didn't represent the new materials and construction techniques that were on the rise at the time.

Architecture in the early 20th century US was marked by the adoption of steel structures, modern construction techniques, and the rise of the skyscraper. As it turns out, this combination of circumstances created the perfect ecosystem for the International Style to flourish, becoming the to-go style for skyscraper designs during the mid-20th century, when American cities were growing fast.

The International Style’s legacy can not only be found in numerous iconic buildings across all major American cities, but also incorporated in contemporary architecture, which still puts a big emphasis on functionality and minimalism.

The 44 Montgomery Street Building was completed in 1967. By 1967 the International Style movement had already left its early days behind and could be considered a mature movement, which does not mean it was loved and accepted by everyone, on the contrary. The International Style was accepted by the architecture community way before it was by the general public, and it is therefore likely that the 44 Montgomery Street Building was not well received by everyone at the time.

Spaces & Uses

The 44 Montgomery Street Building reaches an architectural height of 564ft (172m), 594ft (181m) if you count the antenna. It has a total of 43 floors, served by 18 elevators, which combined offer a total of 781,265 sqf (72,582m²) of usable space.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1967, the 44 Montgomery Street Building has mainly been used as Commercial space.

Materials & Structure

The 44 Montgomery Street Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade of the building however, is load bearing. This doesn't imply that it is a traditional load-bearing wall. Rather, it means that the structure's exterior pillars have been pushed to the very edges, becoming integrated with the facade, and therefore, technically, a part of it.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a very dark curtain wall heavily divided by almost white vertical aluminum panels that act as a vertical brisolei. These aluminum slats are arranged very close to each other, and significantly protrude from the windows plane, creating a very texturized facade that heavily empathises the vertical direction.

Sources

es.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
www.energystar.gov
marketplace.vts.com
revelers.com