“But we wanted something that wouldn’t be too prismatic.” “Sears probably would have settled for a squatty 50- or 60-story building - something sturdy, efficient and durable,” said Fazlur Khan, the structural engineer who, with architect Bruce Graham, drew plans for the tower. Sears Tower’s architects gave their client a far larger building than the company’s honchos likely envisioned. Perhaps ambitious architects seduced them into thinking of Sears as too big to fail. His successors ignored Cushman’s diagnosis. “You hit it five times on the tail with a sledgehammer, and 11 years later the impulse will reach the brain.” “Sears is like a dinosaur,” Joe Cushman who retired as Sears chairman in 1967, once observed. Sears provided the model that Amazon would later capitalized on, but it wasn’t nimble enough to adapt to the digital age. It enabled rural families to enjoy the same consumer goods as their urban counterparts with access to stores. Sears was founded in 1892 and virtually invented home shopping with a catalog as thick as Chicago’s telephone directory. “How will I get there?” was the most asked question from staffers, recalled Barb Lehman, the Sears executive who directed the exodus of 5,000 from Chicago to suburbia. Sears left the building for corporate campus in Hoffman Estates in the 1992, a move that bruised Chicago’s civic pride and complicated commutes for many employees. The company sold Sears Tower and closed stores but couldn’t make a payment on the loan keeping it afloat. By 1991, Walmart’s sales had overtaken Sears’, which went through a long decline before filing for bankruptcy in 2018. But it didn’t ring the corporate cash registers. The building was officially renamed the Willis Tower on July 16, 2009, after a London-based holdings firm retained the naming rights along with leasing space on multiple floors within the building.Sears Tower spurred the redevelopment along the Chicago River’s west banks and in adjoining neighborhoods.The Willis Tower has become one of America’s most iconic skyscrapers, appearing in several movies, books, and television shows since its completion in 1973.Extra height was added to the western antenna on 5th June 2000. The "Skydeck Pavilion" entrance on Wacker Drive was added in 1985, the large antennas in 1982, and the 4 HDTV antennas in 1999 (or thereabouts).Sears is no longer headquartered in this building, having sold the building and moved out to Hoffman Estates, Illinois in 1992.The building has been climbed up twice, by Dan Goodwin in 1981 and by Alain Robert in 1999.Other impressive quantities include 25,000 miles of plumbing and 2,000 miles of electrical wire. There are 76 single-deck elevators in addition to 14 double-deck elevators, bringing the total to 104 cabs. At peak construction, over 2,400 workers were on site representing 60 different subcontractors. The tower was completed for $160 Million and used 76,000 tons of steel, 72,000 cubic yards of concrete, 17,500 tons of mechanical equipment. exterior column lines and 229' at outside faces). The building's structure is a "bundled tube" system of nine squares with sides of 75 feet (for an overall width of 225 x 225 ft btw.It stayed the WTB from 1973 to 1996, where the Petronas Towers in Malaysia surpassed it, although this was only possible because of the spires atop the buildings, counting by roof height the Willis Tower remained the tallest until 2003 when Taipei 101 in Taiwan was completed, 19 feet taller than the Willis Tower’s roof. When completed as the Sears Tower in 1973 it surpassed One World Trade Center in New York City, completed earlier that year as the World’s Tallest Building.Originally the Willis Tower was going to be two twin towers occupying the site at half the height of the current tower.Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP - som.com
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