Millennium Tower vs One Congress Building

Comparing the Millennium Tower and the One Congress Building is interesting because they both rise in Boston, MA, yet they were conceived by two different design teams, Handel Architects and Pelli Clark & Partners, and were completed at different points in time. They were finished more than 7 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 Millennium Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 686ft (209m) with 60 floors above ground, while the One Congress Building reaches 646ft (197m) with 43 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 Millennium Tower and the One Congress Building 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 Handel Architects and Pelli Clark & 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 Millennium Tower is primarily residential, while the One Congress Building is primarily commercial.

The Millennium Tower offers 442 residential units.

Both towers provide significant parking capacity, with Millennium Tower offering 550 spaces and the One Congress Building offering 1160.

The two towers rely on different structural systems, reflecting distinct engineering strategies.

The Millennium Tower uses a Frame structural system, which relies on a regular grid of columns and beams to sustain its weight, while the One Congress Building uses a Framed Tube In Tube system, that combines a strong central core with a perimeter tube of columns.

Yet, when it comes to their facade, they both employed the same solution, 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.