Oh, so THAT’s What the Top of the TransAmerica Pyramid Looks Like

After some discussion, it turns out that the top of the shiny, shiny TransAmerica Pyramid is made up of bunch of Gothic-looking paned windows that protect the 6000-watt halogen disco ball within. You see, sometimes, when the sun’s at just the right angle, total internal reflection kicks in and all that’s visible is a ball of light.

You can see the effect of the metal frames holding the glass here in a nice 30-second nighttime exposure from Flickr’s exxonvaldez, who really ought to consider changing his handle to exxonmed or searivermediterranean or just plain mediterranean.

Click to expand:

Top it off with a lighting rod and you are good to go.

Look for it the next time you’re at a Anonymous vs. Church of Scientology protest / rally / whatever at Washington and Montgomery

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Oh, so THAT’s What the Top of the TransAmerica Pyramid Looks Like”

  1. chasleazy says:
    January 4, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    I wonder what happened when that missing chunk fell off?

  2. sfcitizen says:
    January 4, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    If it fell off in one piece it could certainly give your noggin a floggin.