Lafayette Apartment Towers vs Professional Plaza Tower

Comparing the Lafayette Apartment Towers and the Professional Plaza Tower is interesting because they both stand in Detroit, MI, and were completed within 3 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 Lafayette Apartment Towers is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 213ft (65m) with 22 floors above ground, while the Professional Plaza Tower reaches 154ft (47m) with 12 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 Lafayette Apartment Towers and the Professional Plaza Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the International Style style.

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

Both the Lafayette Apartment Towers and the Professional Plaza Tower are primarily residential towers, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

Originally, the Professional Plaza Tower was designed for medical, but over time it was converted to residential. The Lafayette Apartment Towers by contrast has maintained its original role.

In terms of capacity, the Lafayette Apartment Towers offers 584 apartments, while the Professional Plaza Tower provides 72 units.

The two buildings opted for different structural and facade solutions.

The Lafayette Apartment Towers uses a Frame system, which relies on a regular grid of columns and beams to sustain its weight, while the Professional Plaza Tower uses a Framed Tube In Tube system, that combines a strong central core with a perimeter tube of columns.

And when it came to the facade, the Window Wall went with a Window Wall facade, which uses panels fitted between floor slabs, leaving slab edges visible, while the Professional Plaza Tower opted for a Curtain Wall facade, that uses a lightweight glass curtain wall hung from the structure.