Atlanta City Hall vs W.W. Orr Building

Comparing the Atlanta City Hall and the W.W. Orr Building is interesting because they both stand in Atlanta, GA, and were completed in the same year, 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 Atlanta City Hall is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 213ft (65m) with 14 floors above ground, while the W.W. Orr Building 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 Atlanta City Hall and the W.W. Orr 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 G.Lloyd Preacher and Pringle and Smith followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Atlanta City Hall is primarily governmental, while the W.W. Orr Building is primarily medical.

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