One Montgomery Tower vs 383 Madison Avenue Building

Comparing the One Montgomery Tower and the 383 Madison Avenue Building is compelling because they were both designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, yet they stand in different cities (San Francisco, CA 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 One Montgomery Tower reaches 499ft (152m) with 38 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 182,986 sqf (17,000m²) more than what the One Montgomery 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 One Montgomery Tower was designed in the Postmodernism style, while the 383 Madison Avenue Building reflects the principles of Contemporary.

At the time of their completion, both styles were well established. This makes the comparison especially interesting, because both buildings represent a dominant aesthetic at a particular point in time.

Both the One Montgomery 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.

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