Prudential Tower vs One Beacon Street Building

Comparing the Prudential Tower and the One Beacon Street Building is interesting because they both rise in Boston, MA, yet they were conceived by two different design teams, The Luckman Partnership and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and were completed at different points in time. They were finished more than 8 years apart.

This contrast within the same city allows us to see how different creative minds interpreted the evolving needs of Boston across time.

Let's take a closer look!

The Prudential Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 751ft (229m) with 52 floors above ground, while the One Beacon Street Building reaches 505ft (154m) with 36 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 Prudential Tower and the One Beacon Street Building were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the International Style style.

The One Beacon Street Building was designed at a moment when the International Style style was already in decline, making it more of a lingering expression of the movement. In contrast, the Prudential Tower was built when the style still carried greater cultural weight.

Both the Prudential Tower and the One Beacon Street 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.

Both towers share the same structural solution, a Frame 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.

However, when it comes to the facade, both buildings use different approaches. The Prudential Tower uses a Curtain Wall facade, while the One Beacon Street Building uses a Window Wall facade.

A Curtain Wall facade like the one seen in the Prudential Tower uses a lightweight glass curtain wall hung from the structure, while a window-wall facade like the one seen in the One Beacon Street Building uses panels fitted between floor slabs, leaving slab edges visible.