The Illinois
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The Illinois Mile High Illinois, Illinois Sky-City |
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| Basic data | |
| Place: | Chicago , IL ( USA ) |
| Status : | never built |
| Architect : | Frank Lloyd Wright |
| Technical specifications | |
| Height to the top: | 1731 m |
| Height to the roof: | 1609 m |
| Floors : | 528 |
| Elevators : | 76 |
| Usable area : | 1,710,000 m² |
In 1956, Frank Lloyd Wright designed The Illinois , a building that would be about a mile (1,609 meters) high. The architect wanted to build it in Chicago , which is why it should be named after the state in which the metropolis is located. Alternative names are Mile High Illinois and Illinois Sky-City . Although it could have been, The Illinois was never built.
It would have been the tallest building in the world and would not have given up this title to this day. According to Wright's plans, it would have had 528 floors and approximately 1,710,000 square feet of floor space .
Realization of the project
The Empire State Building in New York was the tallest structure at the time . Mile High Illinois would have been four times as high. Wright believed at the time that it was possible to build such a structure. A self-supporting steel structure was conceivable for realizing the project. However, the height would have caused several problems:
- Steel is very flexible. Wind would have made The Illinois sway permanently. A damper pendulum like in Taipei 101 would have been necessary to make the building usable at all. Wright was aware of the swaying problem, but believed in the stability of a tripod ( CN Tower ).
- The 76 planned elevators would have taken up a lot of space, especially since Wright planned the building to be very slim. The combination of express elevators and smaller elevators for only a few floors was also no solution to the problem. The architect therefore intended to use five-story outdoor elevators with nuclear-powered ratchets .
- Emergency and fire stairs would take up a similar amount of space. Therefore, it was considered to build elevators that also work in the event of a fire.
- The water supply and the sewerage system posed a similar space problem. It was proposed to recycle the sewage from the top floors for those below. This is easier to achieve now than it was in the 1950s.