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.