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Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
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Formerly: The Sears Tower
Formerly: The Sears Building
Built:
1970- 1974
Cost: $186,000,000
Designed by: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Renovated: 1985 by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill at a cost of $25,000,000
Renovated: 1994 by DeStefano and Partners
Type: Skyscraper
Stories: 110
Maximum width: 195 feet
Maximum length: 195 feet
Location: 233 South Wacker Drive
City: Chicago
State: Illinois
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T
he grandest tower in a city known for its great architecture, {HumanName} has served for decades as a mighty symbol of architectural prowess and the triumph of engineering.
Just a few years after pioneering the trussed tube construction that allowed the 100-story John Hancock Center to be erected a couple of dozen blocks away, the same architects and engineers came up with another revolutionary construction method: the bundled tube design. The tower is essentially a series of nine tubes, bound together. Think of it as a pack of cigarettes with each tube rising higher than the rest. The shortest tubes are 50 stories, the second set rises to 66, the third set to 90, and the final to 110 stories. At the mechanical floors are extra trusses which act like belts wrapping around the building and helping counteract the forces of strong winds.
The tower was born out of the need of the Sears company to consolidate its offices. The original plan called for a much smaller tower, but the retailer was eventually convinced to concentrate its employees from seven other buildings into the lower portion of the building while leasing out the rest to other companies. It is fortunate that Sears listened to the architects and developers, because it is no understatement to call the result one of the most important buildings on the face of the Earth.
As Sears' financial fortunes changed, it moved out of this building and to a squat office part in the suburbs. By 2003 Sears had let the naming rights to the building expire. It wasn't until 2009 that the Willis Group consolidated a number of its regional offices into this building, and gained the naming rights in the process.
Shortly thereafter, as part of a larger renovation of the "Skydeck" observation level, four small outdoor observation pods were added to the 103rd floor. The transparent glass "Ledges" were designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the same architecture firm that designed the tower back in the 1970's. Each viewing platform extends out from the tower a little over four feet and is constructed from three layers of half-inch thick glass with a weight capacity of five tons -- two tons more than is called for in the city's building code. The ledges are retractable and placed on the west side of the building 1,353 feet above ground level.
**Architect: Bruce Graham
**Structural engineer: Fazlur R. Khan
**Bounding streets: Upper South Wacker Drive, Lower South Wacker Drive, West Jackson Boulevard, South Franklin Street, West Adams Street.
** West Quincy Street was removed to make way for this tower. The developers purchased it from the City of Chicago for $2,767,500.
**The original plan for this building was just 70-stories tall.
**Before construction, models of the this tower with the rest of the city were built and tested in a wind tunnel at the University of Western Ontario.
**The last steel beam put into place in the construction of this building on the 110th floor was signed by over 12,000 Chicagoans.
**The building, itself, does not have a tunes mass dampener, which is common on large skyscrapers. But both of the two large antenna masts has one of its own near the top.
**The building's exterior is black anodized aluminum. The windows are tinted bronze.
**According to the Chicago Sun-Times, in 2005 a deal was in the works for CDW to move to this building, which included naming rights. The deal fell apart because the building's owners didn't want the word "Discount" on the tower.
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 **This was one of the filming locations for the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
**The white strobe lights at the top blink 57,600 times a day.
 **The street sign at the corner of Jackson Street and Franklin Street declaring that corner Fazlur R. Khan Way in honor of this building's structural engineer.
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