E. Clem Wilson Building vs Los Angeles City Hall

Comparing the E. Clem Wilson Building and the Los Angeles City Hall is interesting because they both stand in Los Angeles, CA, and were completed just one year apart, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The Los Angeles City Hall is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 453ft (138m) with 28 floors above ground, while the E. Clem Wilson Building reaches 184ft (56m) with 13 floors above ground.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the E. Clem Wilson Building and the Los Angeles City Hall were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Art Deco style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Meyer & Holler and Parkinson & Parkinson followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The E. Clem Wilson Building is primarily commercial, while the Los Angeles City Hall is primarily governmental.

These two towers illustrate the many possible ways to combine structure and enclosure in skyscraper design.