The Keystone Building vs Omni Shoreham Hotel

Comparing the The Keystone Building and the Omni Shoreham Hotel is interesting because they both stand in Washington DC, DC, and were completed just one year apart, 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 The Keystone Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 121ft (37m) with 12 floors above ground, while the Omni Shoreham Hotel reaches 0ft (m) with 8 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 The Keystone Building and the Omni Shoreham Hotel 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 Robert O. Scholz and Joseph Henry Abel followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The The Keystone Building is primarily education, while the Omni Shoreham Hotel is primarily hotel.

Originally, the The Keystone Building was designed for residential, but over time it was converted to education. The Omni Shoreham Hotel by contrast has maintained its original role.

The Omni Shoreham Hotel incorporates a 4-star hotel with 834 rooms. More information is available at the official website.

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