Essex on the Park Building vs BMO Tower

Comparing the Essex on the Park Building and the BMO Tower is interesting because they both stand in Chicago, IL, 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.

These two towers present an interesting contrast in their proportions. The BMO Tower rises higher at 728ft (222m), while the Essex on the Park Building reaches 620ft (189m). However, the Essex on the Park Building accommodates more floors with 56 levels above ground, compared to 51 floors in the BMO Tower.

This suggests different approaches to interior space design. The BMO Tower has an average floor-to-floor height of approximately 4.4m, while the Essex on the Park Building has more compact floors averaging around 3.4m each. The taller building's more generous floor heights might indicate grander interior spaces, higher ceilings, or different programmatic requirements.

These different proportions likely reflect the specific needs each building was designed to serve, whether driven by zoning regulations, client requirements, or the intended use of the spaces within. The contrast shows how architects can achieve different spatial experiences even when working with similar overall building scales.

Both the Essex on the Park Building and the BMO Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Contemporary style.

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

The Essex on the Park Building is primarily residential, while the BMO Tower is primarily commercial.

The Essex on the Park Building offers 479 residential units.

Both towers provide significant parking capacity, with Essex on the Park Building offering 177 spaces and the BMO Tower offering 324.

Both the Essex on the Park Building and the BMO Tower rely on a Frame structural system.

A frame structure uses a grid of columns and beams to carry the building's loads. This frees the walls from structural duties, allowing for flexible floor plans and larger windows.

They also employ the same type of facade, a Curtain Wall facade.

A curtain wall is a non-load-bearing facade hung from the structural frame. It is anchored to floor slabs and transfers only its own weight and wind loads, allowing for sleek, glassy exteriors.