What does Salesforce actually make? A quick search says “Customer Relationship Management” and “Cloud Computing.” Their logo is a cloud. That’s how we sell large numbers of widgets now—through a cloud. In a cloud?
Most of my work life has been spent helping architects and design professionals connect authentically with one another and not depend too much on technology to avoid the hard work of sharing themselves. Data is not going to save architects from talking to people.
This week, during the Dreamforce convention, everybody downtown was wearing a baby blue lanyard. SF now stands for Sales Force not San Francisco.
It’s not just this week. The entire area around First and Mission is Salesforce Central Command every day. Soon enough the workers will all have permanent baby blue clouds tattooed on their forearms.
I never thought the new Transbay Terminal would be finished in my lifetime. I was wrong. Salesforce bought the naming rights to the terminal and the park on top. Whatever San Francisco was while I was growing up, it is really gone now. The once down-at-the-heels corner of First and Mission is now bright and shiny.
My father used the old Transbay Terminal daily for over 30 years. He knew all the shortcuts from his nearby office. When I moved to the city in early 1977, I used the building all the time to return to the East Bay and to commute to graduate school. The hulking grey battleship of a building was like a grandparent you were afraid of. Brooding, but you loved her anyway, because she had always been there. The city renovated the structure so it would last another few years and ruined what little grandeur the 1939 building possessed. (Pfleuger, Brown, and Donovan architects).
Cesar Pelli’s firm, the architect for the Salesforce Tower and Transit Center, designs beautiful tall buildings. Few firms do really good work at that scale. Pelli’s low-rise buildings always look squat—too much energy too close to the ground. One of the best new high-rises in San Francisco is the nearby JP Morgan building, because it differs from its neighbors. The dark green fenestration subtly refers to the region’s history and frames the glazed curtain wall.
Cesar Pelli’s JP Morgan building from the Salesforce park.
Although I think the new Salesforce Tower is too tall for San Francisco, I like the detailing on the skin and the curved corners. Two articles worth reading are John King’s in the San Francisco Chronicle (link here) and Lydia Lee’s in Architectural Record (link here). From the exterior, the new transit center looks like a flouncy and elongated petticoat. Perhaps this offers a contrast to the tower next door? But all that lacy white metal work is going to get dirty from the bus exhaust.
Salesforce petticoat junction.
No question that the best thing about the Salesforce complex is also its most mediocre. Salesforce Park on the top level of the transit center offers downtown workers and residents a space to meet, walk, pause, and stare up at the surrounding downtown and eat a brown bag lunch. Although designed by the fine landscape firm PWP Landscape Architecture, there are too many kinds of plants too close together. Instead of a serene setting, they add up to a cacophony of green plantings. Along the north perimeter, a fountain follows the movement of buses below. The kids love that.
My favorite corner of the Salesforce Park.
The good news is that Salesforce brings a lot of well-paid workers to San Francisco. And there is now a generous park downtown where the public is actually welcome, unlike the many POPOS that dot downtown. (Google John King on that topic!)
The sad news is more personal. The San Francisco I knew is gone. For the time being, Salesforce Tower is the tallest building in San Francisco. Some folks say it feels like a supersized middle finger. I think it feels more like an upside-down exclamation point. One day, it could be completed with a sphere kept aloft by air being pushed out the top. And the message will be “Join the Tech Rush!” Or leave.
Postscript
Earlier this week, a crack in one of the steel beams that holds up the park was discovered. This resulted in the closure of the Salesforce Transit Center and Salesforce Park. All on Salesforce founder Mark Benioff’s birthday.
