Seattle Tower vs Washington Athletic Club

Comparing the Seattle Tower and the Washington Athletic Club is interesting because they both stand in Seattle, WA, and were completed within 2 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 Seattle Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 318ft (97m) with 27 floors above ground, while the Washington Athletic Club reaches 249ft (76m) with 21 floors above ground.

Despite being taller and having more floors, Seattle Tower has less total built-up area than Washington Athletic Club.

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 Seattle Tower 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 Albertson, Wilson & Richardson 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 Seattle Tower is primarily commercial, while the Washington Athletic Club is primarily sports.

The Seattle Tower also provides 50 parking spaces.

Both the Seattle Tower and the Washington Athletic Club 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.