Richard J. Daley Center vs University Apartments

Comparing the Richard J. Daley Center and the University Apartments is interesting because they both stand in Chicago, IL, and were completed within 4 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 Richard J. Daley Center is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 650ft (198m) with 31 floors above ground, while the University Apartments reaches 308ft (94m) with 10 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 Richard J. Daley Center and the University Apartments were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the International Style style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both C.F. Murphy Associates and I. M. Pei followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Richard J. Daley Center is primarily governmental, while the University Apartments is primarily residential.

The University Apartments offers 540 residential units.

The University Apartments also provides 220 parking spaces.

The two buildings opted for different structural and facade solutions.

The Richard J. Daley Center uses a Framed Tube In Tube system, which combines a strong central core with a perimeter tube of columns, while the University Apartments uses a Frame system, that relies on a regular grid of columns and beams to sustain its weight.

And when it came to the facade, the Curtain Wall went with a Curtain Wall facade, which uses a lightweight glass curtain wall hung from the structure, while the University Apartments opted for a Window Wall facade, that uses panels fitted between floor slabs, leaving slab edges visible.