Student: Ralph H. BurroughsSID: 212376165Course: ART 118 ATitle: Modern ArchitectureProfessor: Lynn Jones

November 30, 2009

PROJECT ZIGGURAT

The Ziggurat is located at 707 Third Street West Sacramento and was constructed in 1997 for a cost of 60 million dollars and was designed by architect Mr. Ed Kado. Mr. Kado is an accomplished architect of Sacramento, a graduate of UC Berkley, who started his carrier with the design of the Children’s Receiving Home located on Auburn Blvd. He has most recently completed the design of the Bank of the West Tower at 500 Capitol Mall.

Mr. Kado considers the Ziggurat to be his monumental building. Interestingly, the Bank of the West Tower building also carries on the ziggurat theme in that its top section also resembles Kado's Ziggurat. His designs are known to tie together the natural elements such as plants, water, and sunlight. This is elegantly carried out on the first floor to the Ziggurat with a water feature at the entrance. However, this architect considers his speciality to be the ability to carry through with a good client relationship. You see, Kado's design was not the first to be considered for the Ziggurat. A larger firm's design was rejected by Mr. Marc Turtletaub, the owner of the Money Store. Kado was already known to Marc Turtletaub from the remodeling work Kado had completed in a mid-town complex, which was the former location for the Money Store. This relationship got Kado the job. However, his initial design, which extended out overlooking the river, as shown in Illustration 1, was also rejected by Mr. Turtletaub.

Illustration 1: Initial Design Model

Mr. Turtletaub desired to have his building design more symmetric and was also interested in feng shui, so the architect inverted the design to become a Ziggurat, which Kado thought represented stability and was a good fit for a lending institution. The following photo shows the Ziggurat from the 26th story of Kado's latest building. The ancient style of the Ziggurat certainly appears to be anchored well next to the Sacramento

River and is a distinctive and a welcome change to the all too common glass box skyscraper under construction just to its right.

Illustration 2: Ziggurat from Bank of the West

The term Ziggurat means “to build on a raised area.” The Mesopotamians believed its purpose was to securely house a platform between heaven and earth. It is pyramidal in shape with a flat roof, which was considered a shrine. Clearly from the photograph above, our Ziggurat meets the ancient physical requirements. However, there is a more significant issue with the buildings orientation. The building was laid out using the rules of feng shui (Illustrations 3 and 4), as are many important buildings in China.

Illustration 3: Diagram of Feng Shui

It is clear from the drawings of the first, second, and third floors that feng shui was strongly considered as part of the design.

The first floor shows areas for the following attributes for Area Placing & Stellar Portents shown in a clockwise direction:

• Lengthened Years• Severed Fate• Six Curses• Five Ghosts• Celestial Nomads• Entrance• Generating Breath• Accident Mishap

The second floor displays Areas of Ba-Gua placement with the Earth in the center and the following in a clockwise direction:

• Wealth

Illustration 4: Feng Shui Bagua Maps for the Money Store

• Fame• Marriage• Children• Carrier• Health/Family•

The third floor shows notations for Center Earth and the following:• East, Wood, Severed Fate, Fame• SE, Wood, Six Curses, Marriage• South, Fire, Five Ghosts, Children• SW, Earth, Celestial Mon, Helpful, People/Travel• West, Metal, Entrance, Career• NW, Metal, Generating Breath, Knowledge• North, Water, Accident & Mishap, Health/Family• NE, Earth, Lengthened Years, Wealth.

Architects study feng shui as part of a uniquely Asian tradition. The goal of feng shui is to align the Ziggurat with the yin-yang force fields and the natural environment. Partitions were constructed at the entrance and the exit toward the river. This was to attempt to keep the money flow from being drawn toward the river. Mr. Turtletaub was a strong believer in the powers of feng shui. Unfortunately, the Money Store lost it's money and had to give up the Ziggurat.

Illustration 5: Atrium at the cafeteria entrance

Kado's Ziggurat has elegance and character of a fine five star hotel. The atrium shown above has an assortment of plants in window boxes and several fichus trees placed around the floor. This area is light and spacious, much as you would expect in a lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel. Minnesota limestone moves up the walls creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere. There is an ample supply of wicker chairs and tables to allow for employee comfort and the green accent is carried through from the window shades to the green umbrellas. The columns and walls around the area again show the Zig motif. On the other side of the atrium is a theater where presentations and training frequently takes place for employees. This design truly ties together the natural elements of plants, water, and sunlight.

The cafeteria is on the first floor adjacent to the atrium and serves reasonably good food with a nice dinning area. The five step Zig motif is carried through in the back of the chairs, lamps, planters and even the wall molding in the dinning room and the glass separators.

Illustration 6: Zig design on tile to the rear of the grill

Illustration 7: Dinning Area with five step Zig motif

There is an employee gym and exercise room on the North side of the first floor with men’s and women’s locker-rooms. Furthermore, the walkway along the Sacramento River is accessible from the patio out the East doors of the building. The six level parking structure is large enough to be reasonable adequate for the building's employees.

The Ziggurat holds some mystery and very unique architecture in its inner-domain, which resembles the sinuous works of architect Antonio Gaudi. The rooms were used by the “money god,” the executive of the former Money Store. This inner-domain has a strange surrealistic design and consists of two rooms with a connecting stairway. The entrance seems medieval with an arch at the top of the door, as shown below.

Illustration 8: Entrance to the Inner-Domain

These rooms are in contrast with most of the rest of the building as can be seen in the figures below. The Zig motif has now changed to a surrealistic motif with a ceiling melting into the columns and almost organic in appearance.

Illustration 9: Inner-Domain Room with view to East and private meeting area

This was a private meeting room for those privileged people of the inner domain. From the throne position, the money god could look up the Sacramento River at passing vessels, or to the right at Old Sacramento. The sinuous curves of the stairway are complemented by the cherry wood dinosaur backbone hand rail.

Illustration 10: Stairs in Inner-Domain with Dinosaur backbone hand rail

Illustration 11: Sinuous private area

Illustration 12: Back down Inner-Domain with Dinosaur backbone hand rail and cherry wood steps

Illustration 13: Inner-Domain Room surrealistic organic ceiling and lighting

The organic ceiling seems to most resemble a design as may have been inspired by Antonio Gaudi with the smooth organic surfaces and lighting that is distinctively feminine in appearance.

Illustration 14: Echo device recessed into the atrium ceiling about 3 feet.

Another mystical feature of the building is back on the main floor. At the very center of the first floor atrium there is a strange echo feature. This echo device is sunken into the ceiling about three feet. A tap of the shoe on the floor will reverberate back and forth from ceiling to floor and back to the amusement of the individual, but this excitation appears to only occur from the center of the room.

Illustration 15: View to outside river walk

From the patio you can see the latest creation of the Zig architect Ed Kado at 500 Capitol Mall. It is the building with the American Flag. It, too, has the Zig motif at the top, which seems to have become a trademark of our architect.

Illustration 16: Reflection of the Ziggurat design at 500 Capital Mall from the I street bridge

The Ziggurat is truly a pleasure to visit, with an elegance rarely seen in office buildings today. Each floor is accessible by several elevators, and food, parking, a gym are part of the building. The river access provides interesting views of Sacramento. The Ziggurat is a very successful building in comfort and function. It is a true enhancement to Sacramento in general and specifically to West Sacramento. It is little wonder that its architect takes pride in it and reflects it in his latest creation, shown above.

Bibliography

Starkey, Danielle. Sacramento Business Journal interview with Ed Kadoavailable online at http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/1998/02/23/focus3.htmlFebruary 20, 1998

Crowell, Dave, Chief Engineer, interview, drawings, and tour of the Ziggurat, September 28, 2009

“Feng Shui Grid” [Online] Availablehttp://www.naturaltherapypages.com.au/article/Feng_Shui_Grid