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Images of the Sears Tower, Images by Wernher Krutein and PHOTOVAULT®

This page contains samples from our picture files on Cities - Architecture: the Sears Tower. These photographs are available for licensing in any media. For Pricing, General Guidelines, and Delivery information click here. You may contact us thru email or by phone for more information on the use of these images, and any others in our files not shown here. You may also use our search engine PHOTOVALET(tm) to find other images not found on this page. Please do not ask us for free use of these images! Our Chicago Architecture images can be linked to as follows:

Chicago Volume 1, Chicago Volume 2, Chicago Volume 3, Chicago Volume 4, Chicago Volume 5, Chicago Volume 6, Chicago Volume 7, Chicago Volume 8, Chicago Volume 9, Chicago Volume 10, Chicago Volume 11
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The Sears Tower

The Sears Tower Contains 4.5 Million gross square feet of space. It is the second tallest office building in the world. It reaches 443 meters (1,454 feet) excluding the twin broadcast antennas. This behemoth is a bulwark of superlatives.

First opened in 1973, the tower took three years to build. It contains 76,000 tons of steel and weighs a total of 222,500 tons that are supported by 114 rock caissons securely embedded into the bedrock!! It is sheathed with more than 16,000 bronze-tinted windows, and has 28 acres of black duronic aluminum skin. Welded steel frames provide the rigidity required to limit the lateral sway from wind forces.The prefabricated steel was welded off the construction site and was only bolted together once on site.

The building plan comprises a modular system with 9 seventy five foot square, column free units. These 9 square units total 225 square feet at the base. At the 50th floor two diagonally opposite units stop, forming the first step back. The second step back is at the 66th floor with the other two diagonal units stopping, and the last at the 90th floor with three units terminating, leaving a single upper tower of 20 stories.

Black bands appear around the building at the 30th-31st, 48th-49th, 64th-65th, and 106th-108th floors, at which points louvers clad the areas devoted to mechanical operations of the building. The building also contains a 106 cab elevator system, including 16 double deck elevators. These elevators are divided into three separate zones, with skylobbies in between each zone. There are six automatic window-washing machines that clean the outside of the building eight times a year.

After the fire devastated the city in 1871, building regulations were changed to allow multistory structures. The first skyscrapers were built here as well as some of the first apartment houses. Architects such as Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler pioneered new building styles. Frank Lloyd Wright worked in Sullivans office and would later design stunning buildings of his own.

I personally have had the pleasure of spending some time in Chicago taking these pictures and find the world class architecture of this windy city to be truly inspiring. My appreciation for this building hopefully is conveyed here.
Included in the Vault are images of: 311 South Wacker Drive, 35 East Wacker Drive, 900 North Michigan Tower, Adler Planeterium, Aon Center, Art Institute, Bank One Plaza, Billy Goat Tavern, Boeing World Headquarters, Buckingham Fountain, Chicago Board Of Trade, Chicago Stock Exchange, Chicago Sun Times Building, Chicago Temple Building, Chicago Tribune Tower, Chinatown, Citicorp Center, CNA Plaza, Elevated Railway, Federal Reserve Building, Field Museum Natural History, Frank Loyd Wright Home, Fredrick C. Robie House, Graceland Cemetary, Harold Washington Library, Harold Washington Social Security Building, Harpo Studios, Harry Caray, House Of Blues, Hyatt Center, IBM Building, James R. Thompson Center, Jane Addams Hull House, John Hancock Center, Lake Point Tower, Lincoln Park, Lou Mitchells Restaurant, Marina City, Mather Tower, McCormack Place Convention Center, Merchandise Mart, Museum Of Scinece and Industry, Navy Pier, NBC Tower, Newbury Library, North Halstead, Oak Park, Old Town, Onterie Center, Pacific Garden Mission, Prairie Historical District, Printers Row, Pullman Historical District, River East, Robie House, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Scottish Rite Temple, Sears Tower, Shedd Aquarium, Smurfit Stone Building, Soldier Field, Theatre District, The Holy Name Cathedral, The House Of Blues, The Second City, Two Prudential Plaza, Union Station, United Center, Unity Temple, University of Chicago, Water Tower, Wrigley Building . . . . . . O'hare International Airport, Midway Airport

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