Exchange Building vs Washington Athletic Club

Comparing the Exchange Building and the Washington Athletic Club is interesting because they both stand in Seattle, WA, 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 Exchange Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 279ft (85m) with 23 floors above ground, while the Washington Athletic Club reaches 249ft (76m) with 21 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 Exchange Building and the Washington Athletic Club 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 John Graham & Associates and Sherwood D. Ford followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Exchange Building is primarily commercial, while the Washington Athletic Club is primarily sports.

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