NBC Tower vs 383 Madison Avenue Building

Comparing the NBC Tower and the 383 Madison Avenue Building is compelling because they were both designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, yet they stand in different cities (Chicago, IL and New York, NY), and were completed a decade apart.

What this will allow us to see, is how the same firm's approach adapted to different places in different periods of time.

The 383 Madison Avenue Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 755ft (230m) with 47 floors above ground, while the NBC Tower reaches 561ft (171m) with 37 floors above ground.

383 Madison Avenue Building also offers more total built-up area, a total fo 1,184,029 sqf (110,000m²), which is about 49,805 sqf (4,627m²) more than what the NBC Tower offers.

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.

The NBC Tower was designed in the Art Deco style, while the 383 Madison Avenue Building reflects the principles of Contemporary.

The NBC Tower represents a late expression of the Art Deco, a style already in decline in 1989 when it was completed. By contrast, the 383 Madison Avenue Building followed the then mainstream Contemporary, embodying the dominant architectural direction of its time.

Both the NBC Tower and the 383 Madison Avenue Building were designed to serve as commercial towers, and that has remained their main use since their completion, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

The NBC Tower also provides 261 parking spaces.

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