One Montgomery Tower vs Gas Company Tower

Comparing the One Montgomery Tower and the Gas Company Tower is compelling because they were both designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, yet they stand in different cities (San Francisco, CA and Los Angeles, CA), and were completed more than 9 years apart.

What this will allow us to see, is how the same firm's approach adapted to different places at roughly the same time (9 years isn't that much time when it comes to urban context and architecture).

The Gas Company Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 748ft (228m) with 52 floors above ground, while the One Montgomery Tower reaches 499ft (152m) with 38 floors above ground.

Gas Company Tower also offers more total built-up area, a total fo 1,781,748 sqf (165,530m²), which is about 780,706 sqf (72,530m²) 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.

Both the One Montgomery Tower and the Gas Company Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Postmodernism style.

The Gas Company Tower was designed at a moment when the Postmodernism style was already in decline, making it more of a lingering expression of the movement. In contrast, the One Montgomery Tower was built when the style still carried greater cultural weight.

Both the One Montgomery Tower and the Gas Company Tower 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.