Wyndham New Yorker Hotel vs 20 Exchange Place Building

Comparing the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel and the 20 Exchange Place Building is interesting because they both stand in New York, NY, 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 20 Exchange Place Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 774ft (236m) with 57 floors above ground, while the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel reaches 0ft (m) with 43 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 Wyndham New Yorker Hotel and the 20 Exchange Place 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 Sugarman and Berger and Cross & Cross followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Wyndham New Yorker Hotel is primarily hotel, while the 20 Exchange Place Building is primarily residential.

Originally, the 20 Exchange Place Building was designed for commercial, but over time it was converted to residential. The Wyndham New Yorker Hotel by contrast has maintained its original role.

The Wyndham New Yorker Hotel incorporates a 4-star hotel with 1083 rooms. More information is available at the official website.

The 20 Exchange Place Building offers 762 residential units.

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