A literal time capsule buried under the great pyramid

This piece was featured first on Jan 29 for One Good Thing, a weekly newsletter brought to you by Alexis Madrigal about his take on Bay Area art, culture & nature. Subscribe today.

The Transamerica Pyramid has become, rightly, an icon of San Francisco. Built in the early 1970s, it was initially controversial, but over time, the aesthetes prevailed. Looking down Columbus towards downtown, the elegant building opens up the city plan at the street level, too. It’s special.

Recently, my friend Robin Sloan and I wandered over there from a Ferry Building lunch (Lunette, of course) to grab a coffee and talk about a forthcoming project. We sat at the base of the tower and wandered around the redwood grove and peeked in on a new flowering art installation (Earthseed Dome) that is currently being 3D-printed (??) in one of the vacant retail spots on the plaza. So fun.

But what I really want to tell you about is the time capsule.

Yes, there was a time capsule buried 6 feet underground in 1974. During the recent renovation, it was exhumed and the artifacts are now on display in a small gallery on the north side of pyramid.

While there are many things to see, the highlight is the propaganda film that was made about the building.

First of all, it has the funkiest soundtrack you’ve ever heard in your life. Bongos, so many bongos, and a rhythm section that must have also done the soundtrack for Shaft.

Second, San Francisco had some filmmakers back then and they did the thing with this work. Big wide shots, cool tracking shots, time-lapses, zoom-ins. Every 70s cinematographer trick is pressed into service here.

Third, the shots of 1970s San Francisco people living their brown-suited, flared-panted, mustachioed lives are jaw dropping. We are a beautiful and silly people.

Fourth, the first words of this film declare a lasting truth. “If you want to see the shape of things to come,” the narrator says, probably between sips of cognac, “go to San Francisco.”

This is our enduring identity, somehow, through all the change. We’re a place that embodies the future, both socially and technologically. I don’t know where that sensibility inheres. There is no actual DNA of a city. So, how does this futurity keep reproducing through the decades?

And yet it does. And it is an important fact about this place.

I think the original Transamerica Pyramid logo might be the real logo of our city: Six simple lines that generate movement in time and space. What a gorgeously simple rendering of the ethos: we are here and we are trying to get somewhere better.

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Alexis Madrigal, Co-Host, Forum

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Queer Run Club event on Saturday.
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