Towrs

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The Bank of America Plaza continues the tradition of Los Angeles skyscrapers with strong vertical lines and room at the top for the corporate brand. Its 55 stories occupy a prominent location on Bunker Hill slightly apart from the rest of the skyscraper rabble, giving it a chance to stand out from the rest and let its gray facade gleam in the Southern California sun.

These thoughts on the building are from its architect, Charles Griggs:

"I was the Chief Architect on the "shell" (the entire 2.5 million square foot project without any tenant improvements) and I also was responsible for the 1,000,000 sq. ft. of Security Pacific's interiors improvements, all new furniture, furnishing and equipment for 8,000 bank employees plus a 28 million artwork purchase. The total rentable area is 1.4 million square feet which we had hoped to expand the bank into by the year 2000.

"There is no such thing as "style" in a high rise office building. I was striving for the most efficient building in the world from a rentable square footage point of view. Because it was a bank, the one thing I wanted to achieve was a look of permanence. It turned out to be a false concept because Security Pacific Bank, which was 100 years old at the time, was bought by Bank of America,. So much for permanence. ha ha.

"This project, as in all large projects, is way over the head of the client, so I had a completely free hand in the design.

"The one thing I am the most proud of is a decision I made early on in the design processes and that was to design this building like "a ship at sea". This project assumes that in a major event (earthquake) there would be no one to help us, no 911, police, fire, medical, water, sewer, communications, nada......

"To my knowledge this is the only building in the world that is totally self sufficient in a major catastrophe and could stand alone for about 10 days without any help from the outside world.

"I felt very satisfied in what we accomplished and it matched all of my expectations. I had a great client who put their complete faith in my hands and provided sufficient funds to do the job right."