Salesforce West vs One Montgomery Tower

Comparing the Salesforce West and the One Montgomery Tower is especially interesting because they share much in common. Both rise in San Francisco, CA both were designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and they were completed within 3 years of each other.

This overlap gives us a unique opportunity to understand how Skidmore, Owings & Merrill approached different commissions in the same urban context and historical context during a short period.

The Salesforce West is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 600ft (183m) with 43 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 Salesforce West and the One Montgomery Tower 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 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill followed what was in many ways expected at the time, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms rather, than breaking with convention.

Both the Salesforce West and the One Montgomery 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.

The Salesforce West also provides 220 parking spaces.

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