101 California Street, Modernist skyscraper in Financial District, San Francisco, United States

101 California Street is a 48-story office tower completed in 1982 in the Financial District, bounded by California, Davis, Front and Pine Streets. Its faceted cylindrical shaft rises 183 m; near mid-height the glass facade steps outward in vertical folds above a row of smooth light-gray columns. The base holds a seven-story glass-enclosed lobby and a granite plaza with flower beds and a fountain.

101 California Street was completed in 1982, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, the same team behind the similar entrance of 101 Park Avenue in New York. In 2012 GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, bought 92% of the building from Nippon Life Insurance Company for US$910 million; Hines Interests holds a partial stake. On July 1, 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri, a former client of the law firm Pettit & Martin, entered its 34th-floor offices and killed eight people and wounded six before killing himself.

The entrance of 101 California Street closely mirrors that of 101 Park Avenue in New York City, as both were designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1982. The granite plaza with flower beds and a fountain serves as a public space, and during the holiday season a platform of oversized Christmas ornaments is added there.

The plaza at the base is accessible to the public and offers a good view of the tower's cylindrical form and scale. You can walk around the granite surfaces and landscaped areas to appreciate the building's design from ground level.

The plaza's terraced garden in front of the building is dedicated to the victims of the July 1, 1993 shooting, when Gian Luigi Ferri killed eight people and wounded six at the Pettit & Martin law offices on the 34th floor. The attack prompted Senator Dianne Feinstein's drive for the 1994 federal assault weapons ban.