One Montgomery Tower vs 575 Market Street Tower at Market Center

Comparing the One Montgomery Tower and the 575 Market Street Tower at Market Center is interesting because they both rise in San Francisco, CA, yet they were conceived by two different design teams, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Hertzka & Knowles, 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 San Francisco across time.

Let's take a closer look!

The 575 Market Street Tower at Market Center is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 574ft (175m) with 40 floors above ground, while the One Montgomery Tower reaches 499ft (152m) with 38 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 One Montgomery Tower and the 575 Market Street Tower at Market Center were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Postmodernism style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Hertzka & Knowles followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

Both the One Montgomery Tower and the 575 Market Street Tower at Market Center 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.