Besides the interesting architecture facts, the greatest thing about the tower is that it has a public skydeck! You can go up to the top and be amazed by the 360º views of Chicago, Lake Michigan and the Illinois plain, on a clear day you can see up to 50miles and 4states! Sears’ optimistic growth projections were not met, and today after several buy-sell processes Willis Holding Group is the major space owner of the building, giving its name to the tower. Sears Tower design concept + “Burj Khalifa” vs “Willis Tower” All nine tubes would rise up to the 50th floor of the building, where the northwest and southeast tubes end, the remaining seven continue up ending each one on a different height, as the following diagram shows: The Sears tower was designed as nine square “tubes”, each essentially a separate building, clustered in a 3×3 matrix. The great architecture significance of this tower it not only came for its record-breaking height but for its innovative structure system, it was the first building ever designed with a bundle tube structure!įor the first time in history “buildings no longer needed to be boxlike in appearance: they could become sculpture.” Instead of one tube, a building consiststed of several tubes tied together to resist the lateral forces, which was highly efficient in economic terms. was the larger retailer in the world when its executives decided to consolidate its approximately 350,000 employees distributed throughout the Chicago area into one single building. With the immediate space demands of 3 million square feet and predictions for future growth, Sears commissioned Chicago architects: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill -SOM- to design the largest office building in the world. At the time of its completion in 1973 was the tallest building on earth, holding this rank for over 25years! The Sears Tower, officially named Willis Tower, is the head icon of Chicago’s Skyline, its 108 floors dominate the city views from almost every corner. If you have visited John Hancock Tower before and want to tell your experience or show your pictures, share them with Skyline Architecture and they will get published! Indeed, the space left for this function (at least the ladies restroom) is breathtaking. Architects are taught at school that the thing they should never forget to visit when being in a building are the restrooms, if they are successful the building must be successful as well. This building is very interesting in many aspects: structural, programmatic and spatial. Despite this fact, these apartments were the most requested. In the beginning, the structure was something to be hidden and the apartments that had a piece of structure on their façade were expected to be sold last. Its structural importance relies on the X-bracing tubular system that for the first time was shown in the exterior. Nowadays, it is the fourth tallest building in Chicago. When it was being built it was the tallest building in the world outside from New York. (Red square is where the previous image was taken – Building in Erie St.) The program is basically residential but it also includes a variety of uses on both bottom and top of the tower retail on street level, and an observatory and a restaurant on the highest floor. The construction started in 1965, with Bruce Graham as the chief designer and Fazlur Khan as the structural engineer. The tower height, including its antennas, is 459 meters with a total of 100 floors. Located north of the Magnificent Mile it is one of our favorite spots! The Signature’s Lounge, situated on the 95th floor, has an amazing panorama and it is one of the most visited points on the city. When thinking about Chicago’s Skyline, John Hancock Tower is one of its main attractions.
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