Long Beach Main Post Office Building vs E. Clem Wilson Building

Comparing the Long Beach Main Post Office Building and the E. Clem Wilson Building is interesting because they both stand in Los Angeles, CA, and were completed within 5 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 E. Clem Wilson Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 184ft (56m) with 13 floors above ground, while the Long Beach Main Post Office Building reaches 0ft (m) with 7 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 Long Beach Main Post Office Building and the E. Clem Wilson Building 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 Louis A. Simon and Meyer & Holler followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Long Beach Main Post Office Building is primarily government, while the E. Clem Wilson Building is primarily commercial.

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