Great Aspirations: The Near Miss of The Illinois Sky City
By: Allision Kraft
Submitted: 2010-09-24 07:31:51 | Word Count: 369
As the possible inspiration for Dubai's Burj Khalifa Hotel, The Illinois Sky City, designed in 1956 for the city of Chicago, was perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright's pinnacle of engineering design. Had she been built, this magnificent superstructure would have topped out at a mile in height (1,609 meters/5,280 feet) spreading 18.46 million ft² over 528 storeys and incorporating a 400ft spire.
With space travel and the promise of new worlds becoming a reality, the 1950's and 60's spawned some fantastical visions of the future – deep sea colonies, floating utopias, and ice-bound metropolis' suddenly became such a plausible notion as to feel they already virtually existed. Take the Atomium, icon of the 1958 Brussels World Fair and a very real example of how far steel and glass could be manipulated during the 50's.
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Beset with technical problems from the word go, Wright's vision may have scraped through logistical rationale on paper, however the reality of the project never held up to more actualised scrutiny. The steel frame of the building, for example, would have swayed in the wind (a claim disputed by Wright, who claimed his innovative tripod structure would have withstood such weather issues)
Utility provisions and fire safety precautions (power, water, waste systems etc) appeared to occupy too much internal space in the opinion of Wright's associates. Although Wright disputed their claims and provided workable solutions, his fellow experts remained unenthused.
Glazing was of particular concern to high level maintenance experts. Glazing maintenance itself would have been a mammoth task, consuming much of the year simply in terms of glazing repairs, window cleaning and eventual glazing refurbishment.
The important thing to remember about Wright's dream is that had she been built, The Illinois would still be the tallest building in the world, cementing Wright's reputation even further as a forefather of contemporary engineering and design.
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