Southern Bell Telephone Company Building vs W.W. Orr Building

Comparing the Southern Bell Telephone Company Building and the W.W. Orr Building is interesting because they both stand in Atlanta, GA, 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 Southern Bell Telephone Company Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 381ft (116m) 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 Southern Bell Telephone Company Building 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 Marye, Alger and Vinour 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 Southern Bell Telephone Company Building is primarily commercial, 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.