Tara Donovan’s Stratagems Tower Transforms Transamerica Pyramid Center

This post examines a convergence of architecture, urban form, and contemporary art in San Francisco. The focus is the 48-story Transamerica Pyramid Center, a modernist icon completed in 1972, and the Annex Gallery’s presentation of Tara Donovan’s Stratagems.

Donovan’s large-scale sculptures—thousands of recycled CDs wrapped around steel supports and mounted on concrete plinths—are displayed within the building. The Transamerica Pyramid is renowned for its tapering silhouette, designed to invite more daylight at street level.

The show is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) as part of a nomadic initiative. Visitors are invited to consider how material choices, light, and urban scale interact with one another.

Transamerica Pyramid Center: Architecture and daylighting

The Transamerica Pyramid Center is a landmark example of mid-20th-century modernism. Its pyramid form is engineered to maximize sun exposure on street fronts and creates a distinct silhouette against the San Francisco skyline.

The tapering geometry reduces mass at higher levels, affecting both how the building looks and how wind moves around it. Inside, daylight guides movement and highlights the pedestrian experience in a dense urban setting.

The Annex Gallery’s location within the building transforms an architectural landmark into a cultural venue. Iconic structures can host site-specific art while maintaining their daylight and programmatic integrity.

Architectural and engineering implications

The building’s structure, wind optimization, and daylighting make it a compelling example of how design intent becomes practical performance. The taper shapes both the exterior and the way daylight is distributed inside.

Collaboration between form, function, and aesthetics in a historic shell offers lessons on retrofitting and occupant comfort. Contemporary art programs can fit within historic buildings while respecting their character.

Tara Donovan’s Stratagems: Recycled CDs in a modernist frame

Donovan’s Stratagems series features installations that echo the building’s monumental presence through light, scale, and reflective surfaces. The sculptures are made of thousands of recycled CDs wrapped around steel supports and anchored to concrete plinths, creating swirling spires that reflect ambient light.

The works reference skyscraper architecture, forming a dialogue between sculpture and urban form. Donovan is known for transforming ordinary materials into immersive landscapes.

Stratagems uses reflective CD material to produce changing textures as daylight shifts. The medium creates a spectrum of architectural perception.

Dialogues between sculpture and skyscraper

The installation’s vertical forms and radiating surfaces connect visually with the surrounding skyline. By placing modular, reflective elements in a space known for formal purity, Donovan encourages viewers to see everyday materials as architectural elements.

The sculptures communicate ideas about mass, repetition, and scale—key concerns in both architecture and engineering. They offer a tactile exploration of light as a material.

Materiality, technology, and cultural reflection

Stratagems also comments on the lifecycle of media. CDs, once popular in the 1990s, have been replaced by digital formats.

By using obsolete media in a modernist setting, Donovan’s work raises questions about obsolescence, value, and material reuse in cities. This shift from physical discs to digital streams reflects broader changes in how people engage with technology and memory.

Exhibition context: ICA SF and nomadic curatorial strategy

The ICA SF’s decision to present Stratagems as a nomadic project—moving through varied, city-rooted contexts—emphasizes art’s adaptability to different urban ecosystems.

This approach aligns with contemporary practice that treats exhibition venues as active components of the artwork itself, rather than neutral containers.

Through July 31, Stratagems engages with San Francisco’s architectural heritage and its evolving cultural landscape.

Engineers, designers, and visitors are invited to consider how sculpture can inhabit public and semi-public spaces with architectural resonance.

• Key takeaway: The intersection of iconic architecture and contemporary sculpture can illuminate daylighting, materiality, and urban form.
• Key takeaway: Recycled materials in sculpture provoke discussion about sustainability and cultural memory in architectural contexts.
• Key takeaway: Nomadic curating expands the reach of site-specific works and strengthens the dialogue between art and the city.

 
Here is the source article for this story: Tara Donovan’s ‘Stratagems’ Tower Within a San Francisco Architectural Icon