Big Deal - In San Francisco, Life Without "Starchitects" Richard Meier & Partners Architects HOLDING PATTERN A project by Richard Meier at Market Street and Van Ness Avenue has been held up for five years because of concerns over wind conditions for pedestrians on surrounding streets. WHETHER it's Frank Gehry at New York by Gehry, Christian de Portzamparc at One57 or Robert A. M. Stern at 15 Central Park West, showcasing a "starchitect" is part of the arms race that is luxury condo development in Manhattan these days. The developers of Walker Tower, a luxury condo conversion in Chelsea, have taken it a step further, trumpeting the original designer of the former commercial building, Ralph Walker, whom The New York Times in 1957 called the "architect of the century." They have even erected a small museum about Mr. Walker, who died in 1973, in the tower's sales center. But across the country, San Francisco offers an intriguing counterpoint: distinctive architecture is conspicuously lacking in the high-rise building boom. Forty years after it was completed, the 850-foot Transamerica Pyramid remains the most recognizable high-rise tower built in the City by the Bay. Designed by the architect William Pereira, it took a lot of flak from locals during its planning and construction, with detractors sometimes referring to it as a phallic symbol, though their actual wording was more blunt. Nevetheless, it became a fixture of the city's skyline. Today it stands mostly alone in a city more interested in conserving its old Victorian-style homes than in making a statement with new development. It is a puzzling phenomenon in a part of the country often seen as an engine of American innovation. "People work hard to preserve old things without taking the risk to build something new," Mr. Gehry said about San Francisco in a recent phone conversation. He was critical of the high-rise building boom under way in San Francisco's South of Market area, where the newly built towers are boxy and utilitarian. "It's business without heart," he said. In the past decade, 13 high-rise condo towers of 20 stories or more have been built in San Francisco. Another four such projects have been approved by the city, according to the Mark Company, a real estate marketing and sales firm. There is nary a brand-name architecture firm to be found among the towers that have already been built, though Handel Architects did design the sleek Millennium Tower. A new luxury high-rise being designed by Richard Meier is still struggling to get approved by the city after almost five years of development. The new buildings South of Market are meant to attract singles and young couples, many of whom are working in the tech industry and don't yet want the hassles of a single-family home. And while higher-end offerings like the Millennium have attracted a few prominent locals - like the former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana - foreigners, especially from China, make up a large chunk of the buyers. At the Madrone, another high-rise in the newly developed neighborhood of Mission Bay, a young techie apartment owner I spoke with said that the architecture of the building had never really been a consideration. That doesn't surprise Mr. Stern, who doesn't see young tech buyers as having the sophistication to care about buildings (though, it must be said, they may have refined tastes in the subtle design touches of the latest smartphones). "I think it takes them awhile to get over the initial high-dose blast of wealth to realize that wealth can be used more creatively than just buying big shoebox spaces and sticking in foosball games and other things like that," Mr. Stern said. The young software engineers may not care too much about the quality of architecture where they live, but down in Silicon Valley some big tech firms have tapped world-renowned architects to design their new headquarters. Facebook hired Mr. Gehry, 83, for the expansion of its campus in Menlo Park. Mr. Gehry designed a 433,555-square-foot building with a rooftop garden that will be built on stilts. "It should look like a floating forest where the building peeks from beneath a series of trees," said Slater Tow, a Facebook spokesman. We are not out to make an architectural statement, we are out to make the most functional building for engineers.