12th and F

Wandering the city today I noticed this, which I think is one of the nicer new office buildings in Washington. It's on F between 11th and 12th, near Ford's Theater. Downtown Washington has a strict height limit which generally works out to 12 or 13 stories, and this creates a challenge for an architect because all the buildings are the same height. Since the height is limited, they have to fill all of the space available. This one breaks up the monotonous flow in a rather elegant way. I like the way the facade has been decorated -- it evokes the 1920s without being too imitative of anything in particular.

But I still like the old classic at 12th and Pennsylvania better: