[STR]

From the Chicago 3D Model thread, here's my dug up history of the WTC.

Originally Posted by STR

Tentative timeline for the WTC:

*1980-1981 Stanley Raskow approaches SOM with a propsal to build a 5-6Msqft 1,700 foot tall tower in Chicago.

*1981 Architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer John Zils produce the 181 story bundled tube design shown above. Structural Engineer Fazlur Khan is dissatisfied with using bundled tubes and searches for an alternative. By this time the tower has balloned in size to 10Msqft and 2,300 feet. 2,500 feet was the preffered height by Raskow, but Khan adamantly insisted for a reduction to at most 2,100. They eventually settled on the middle figure.

*1982 Khan invents the telescoping superframe and applies it to the WTC, resulting in the 168 story design on the last page. Raskow announces the tower to the world, but is absent from the unveiling. A representative for a group of financiers is does attend. Raskow insists the project is real and has several backup plans for financing should the main fall through.

*1983-1984 Stanley Raskow suspends work with SOM on the WTC. SOM's fee of $840,000 is unpaid. SOM seeks its debt through legal action. No assets of Stanely Raskow or his company, 300 N LaSalle Development, are found and the commission is never paid. The original financiers had pulled out some time earlier. The underwriter for the project at the time of SOM's termination is found to be a shell of a company that was forced into bankruptcy a year or so earlier after it was found to have committed accounting fraud.

*1984 Stanely Raskow, after being unable to secure his new site near Grant Park, threatens to take his project to Texas. Reprtedly the tower has been brought up to the 2,500 foot figure Raskow wanted.

*1984-1986 Raskow commissions Wesse and Assc. for a new WTC design, based on a structural study Wesse had done earlier. This new design is based on an enhancement of the squared tube (eg. Aon, World Trade Center NY) and stands 2,500 feet tall as Raskow earlier intended. ARTICLE

No information after December 1986 is available.

The last sentence isn't entirely true. A relative of Stanley Raskow contacted me soon after posting my research saying he was alive and well.

Originally Posted by STR

Final version of the Graham/Zils design at correct location.



It's doesn't look too bad from the postcard shot.


Unfortunately, this is what most of Chicago would look at when commuting downtown.

Next up is the 168 story Graham/Khan design.



Original Plan




Graham Design


More info I dragged up

Chicago World Trade Center

Location: Chicago, USA
Original Proposal Date: October 27, 1981
Projected Cost: 1 billion (circa 1981) dollars
Height of Rooftop: 2300 feet
Stories: 184
Height of Highest Occupied Floor: 2280 feet
Status: Unbuilt but possibly revived
Materials: High strength steel
Fascade Material: Gray and black aluminum
Main Architect: Bruce Grahm of SOM
Main Structural Engineer: John Zils of SOM

The Chicago World Trade Center would truly be an amazing building if built. Here are the facts I know about this building so far. The Chicago World Trade Center would stand 2300 feet high with 184 stories. That is more floors than Aesop had fables! It had a bundled tube design, like the sears tower. The Chicago World Trade Center's design is different, though, being a 5x9 tubed design. Each tube is a 45 foot square. Here is how the building is set up. The first three rows are the full 9 tubes wide and rise the complete 184 stories at 2300 feet. The fourth row is 7 tubes wide and rises up to 80 percent the full height, or to the 150th story at 1845 feet...Finally, the fifth and final row is five tubes wide after the first few stories and rises up to 78 percent the full height, or to the 147th story at 1800 feet...The total amount of rentable space within this building (13.5 million square feet) would have exceeded the amount of rentable space within Sears Tower and both of the original New York WTC twin towers combined!

The engineering of the Chicago World Trade Center project began in 1980 and took a little over a year to complete. Tentative plans for the project were formally announced on October 27, 1981. Groundbreaking took place in February 1982. Excavation on the Chicago World Trade Center's foundation was scheduled to begin in April 1982. Completion of the project was scheduled for late 1988. The building would have been open for buisness by 1990.

Here are a couple more fun facts:

The fourth row of the building, which is seven 45 foot tubes wide is a somewhat darker shade of grey than the rest of the building. The architects made the building's colors this way to help enhance it's splendor even more.

The topmost floor of the CWTC would have been a restaurant that would have enabled people to dine at an altitude of 2280 feet above Chicago!

Apparently Mr. Raskow didn't get a warm reception here.


I'm working on the Wesse plan right now. Keep watching this post. There's quite a bit of stuff to look through and I keep turning up a lot of really interesting stuff, like the new quote in my signiture, which is from an interview just a year before his death in 1984. I'm saving all the pdf's and will be able to post higher-res images of everything if needed.

Check this out! A brand new supertall proposal from about the time of the 1970's Boom.