Sketching Transamerica Pyramid, Sentinel Building – a drawing tutorial by Dan Hogman

Some buildings are better viewed not in isolation but in conjunction with a neighbour. When the two appear together before the eyes, there is something that completes the picture and makes everything else blur in the background.

One such pair is the Transamerica Pyramid and the Sentinel Building from San Francisco. Visible from the Kearny Street and Columbus Avenue, the two buildings sit together in one frame like yin and yang.

The 260m high Transamerica Pyramid is a 48-storey futurist building, which is the second-most tallest skyscraper in the city after the Salesforce Tower rising up to 326m. Designed by architect William Pereira and constructed in 1972, the structure soars like a needle in the San Fran skyline, making itself seen from far and wide. Its monumentality and crisp modernist facade featuring white aluminium panels finds a robust balance when the spectacle is adjusted to include the late ‘flatiron’, Sentinel Building a.k.a Columbus Tower. Built in 1906 by Salfield and Kohlberg architects, the latter is a Victorian steel framed seven-storey structure with a distinctive green copper façade and a domed roof.

As Dan Hogman enjoys sketching the buildings that make up San Francisco, he gives us a quick sketching tutorial where he captures the city's quirky architecture.

For more videos by him, click here.