#004 l Sears Tower l CHICAGO l 442m l 108fl

[tolvarena]

like it!

10

[hingpit1984]

10/10

[mohammed ghani]

7/10

[capricorn2000]

10/10 love it for its unique design.

[Sebastianovik]

My favorite in US 10/10

[DecoJim]

9.5/10
Aside from its sheer size and being a one-time worlds tallest building; its structural system was very innovative for the time. When it was completed as one of the first buildings since the art deco era with setbacks, it gave me hope that the architecture of tall buildings would once again become interesting.

[ThatOneGuy]

Buildings without setbacks aren't interesting?

[yanik]

10 /10

[Fotostatica]

10/10

The Willis Tower is like a sexy older man, boxy but classy.

[tamilarasu]

4/10

[gayman]

6/10

[bozenBDJ]

10/10 !

[L.A.F.2.]

I'll dedicate my 1,450th post to the Sears Tower, one of my favorite buildings on the planet:

[ZZ-II]

it's not the newest tower...but it will be one of my favorites forever

[Chicago103]

Here is a rare picture of the original Wacker Drive entrance prior to the 1985 atrium entrance we have today. For those of you that don't know the tower itself hits street level on Wacker Drive a few feet higher than on Franklin Street and that point on Wacker is somewhere between the Concourse and Mezzanine levels of the building, about 4-5 feet above the former level. These outdoor steps in the picture apparently went up to the Mezzanine level on the Wacker Drive side whereas today the atrium entrance has indoor steps that go down to the Concourse level. The Franklin Street entrance on the other hand always went directly into the Concourse level.

This actually reminded me of a diagram a SSP forumner e-mailed me in about 2005 that had precise floor height measurements of every single floor from the Chicago Buildings Department. If I recall correctly the 1,353 foot high measurement for the 103rd floor Skydeck was measured from the Mezzanine level (original Wacker Drive main entrance) whereas the roof was measured from the Concourse level (1,450' measurement), in fact all floors were measured from the Concourse and if you subtracted 13 feet and some odd inches from the measurement (exact same as the difference between the concourse and mezzanine levels) for the 103rd floor it came out exactly to the 1,353 foot measurement you read everywhere in regards to the Skydeck.

Unfortunately I can't prove this to everyone here because the computer where I saved the diagram died on me years ago, the e-mail account from my college days where I received it is gone as well as is the PM database on SSP from those days so I don't even recall the name of the forumner who sent me this. My bad for not backing up this awesome rare find properly but I my computer happened to die suddenly after the other sources were purged. I am curious if anyone on here has any sources that confirm or deny what I recall from memory from years ago. Skyscraper geeks who are obsessed with exact measurements want to know.

[L.A.F.2.]

I can't thank you enough for that post. I've tried several times to explain this concept to people who didn't understand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this why the official height of the building was later reduced from 1,454 feet to 1,450 feet?

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by L.A.F.2.

I can't thank you enough for that post. I've tried several times to explain this concept to people who didn't understand. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this why the official height of the building was later reduced from 1,454 feet to 1,450 feet?

Actually 1,454 feet according to my understanding was always just a misprint, it has always been 1,450 feet from Franklin Street (i.e. lowest street level entrance and concourse level). Actually I need to correct my previous post a bit (I just copied and pasted it from a post I made in a different thread), the difference between the Franklin Street entrance and the Wacker Drive atrium entrance is actually more like six feet six inches and not the four feet that is stated in many places, I know because I was there recently and I was able to do an educated guess based on a place one can and compare the height of the concourse with the atrium floor slab. The mezzanine is about seven feet or so above that, so overall the mezzanine is about 14 feet higher than the concourse.

So to summarize overall building height (roof, antenna) is measured from the Franklin Street concourse entrance but the 103rd floor Skydeck 1,353 foot height is measured from the Mezzanine level and this was probably because the original Wacker Drive entrance had outdoor stairs that went up to the mezzanine, in reality one could say the Skydeck is 1,367 feet high if you measure from the concourse, at least I am about 90% sure of the latter, as I said I am basing this on memory from seeing second hand blueprints years ago, I would have to see the blueprints again or get confirmation from someone who does to verify this 100% (perhaps STR?). I am also trying to figure out precise measurements down to lower Wacker Drive, the Chicago River and Lake Michigan from the Skydeck/roof/antenna.

[Marcanadian]

image hosted on flickr

Chicago by Marcanadian, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Chicago by Marcanadian, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Chicago by Marcanadian, on Flickr

[burgund]

8,5/10

[eBol]

6/10