Eastern Columbia Building vs Los Angeles City Hall

Comparing the Eastern Columbia Building and the Los Angeles City Hall is interesting because they both stand in Los Angeles, CA, and were completed within 2 years of each other, 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 Eastern Columbia Building reaches 262ft (80m) 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 Eastern Columbia 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 Curlett & Beelman 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 Eastern Columbia Building is primarily residential, while the Los Angeles City Hall is primarily governmental.

Originally, the Eastern Columbia Building was designed for retail, but over time it was converted to residential. The Los Angeles City Hall by contrast has maintained its original role.

The Eastern Columbia Building offers 147 residential units.

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