140 New Montgomery Building vs The Bellaire Tower

Comparing the 140 New Montgomery Building and the The Bellaire Tower is interesting because they both stand in San Francisco, CA, and were completed within 5 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 140 New Montgomery Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 459ft (140m) with 26 floors above ground, while the The Bellaire Tower reaches 253ft (77m) with 20 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 140 New Montgomery Building and the The Bellaire Tower 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 Miller and Pflueger and Herman Carl Baumann followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The 140 New Montgomery Building is primarily commercial, while the The Bellaire Tower is primarily residential.

The The Bellaire Tower offers 64 residential units.

Both the 140 New Montgomery Building and the The Bellaire Tower rely on a Frame structural system.

A frame structure uses a grid of columns and beams to carry the building's loads. This frees the walls from structural duties, allowing for flexible floor plans and larger windows.

They also employ the same type of facade, a Masonry facade.

A masonry facade gives the building a heavier, more traditional appearance. It often conceals a frame structure behind it, creating the look of solid walls without carrying the main loads.