Park Plaza Hotel vs James Oviatt Building

Comparing the Park Plaza Hotel and the James Oviatt Building is interesting because they both stand in Los Angeles, CA, and were completed within 2 years of each other, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The James Oviatt Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 161ft (49m) with 13 floors above ground, while the Park Plaza Hotel reaches 0ft (m) with 11 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 Park Plaza Hotel and the James Oviatt Building were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Art Deco style.

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

The Park Plaza Hotel is primarily cultural, while the James Oviatt Building is primarily commercial.

Originally, the Park Plaza Hotel was designed for hotel, but over time it was converted to cultural. The James Oviatt Building by contrast has maintained its original role.

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