Willis Tower

You tilt your head back and the building keeps going. Black steel rises floor over floor until the top seems to lean against the clouds. This is Willis Tower. For many years it was the tallest building in the world. Stand at its base on a windy day and you can feel how small a single person is beside it. The wind here is rarely still.

The tower was finished in 1973. It was built for Sears, Roebuck and Company, then one of the largest retailers in the country. For decades people knew it as the Sears Tower. The company needed room for thousands of workers, and it wanted a single home for all of them gathered under one roof. Its dark glass and steel set it apart from every neighbor.

The design came from the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The architect was Bruce Graham. The engineer was Fazlur Rahman Khan. Khan's idea changed how very tall buildings are made. He thought of the tower as a bundle of nine square tubes, pressed together and rising as one strong frame. It used far less steel than older towers of the same height.

You can read that idea on the skyline. The nine tubes do not all reach the same height. Some stop partway up. Others continue higher. As they fall away at different levels, the tower steps inward as it climbs. This is why the top looks narrower than the base, and why the shape is so easy to recognize from far off. From certain streets you can count the steps in its outline.

The numbers are large. The tower has 110 stories. It stands about 1,450 feet to the roof. From 1973 until 1998 it held the title of the tallest building in the world. Even after taller towers rose elsewhere, it remained the tallest in its own country for many more years after that. Two tall white antennas rise from the roof and add to its height.

In 2009 the building took a new name. A firm called Willis agreed to lease space here, and as part of that deal the tower became Willis Tower. Many people in Chicago still call it by the old name out of long habit. Both names point to the same dark giant standing on the skyline.

Most visitors come for the view. An express elevator climbs to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor. Your ears may pop on the way up. The ride is quick. When the doors open, the whole region spreads out below you, and on a clear day the flat land runs all the way to the edge of sight. Hold the rail as the floor numbers climb.

From this height the city turns into a map. Streets become thin lines. Cars become slow dots. The lake fills the eastern side with open water and meets the sky at a hard, level line. Boats leave white trails that slowly fade behind them. Trains crawl in and out of the center of the city. To the west, the streets run in a flat grid until they fade into haze.

The Skydeck holds a famous test of nerve. Glass boxes called the Ledge push out from the side of the building. Their floors are clear glass. Step onto one and there is nothing below your feet but air and, far down, the street. Some visitors walk straight out. Others cannot make themselves let go of the frame. The glass is thick and strong, but the mind still hesitates.

Weather changes the visit completely. On a bright morning you can see for miles. When clouds move in low, the top floors can sit inside the mist, and the windows turn soft and white. The building also sways a little in strong wind. The motion is slight, and it is built into the design on purpose. Plan around the forecast if you can.

Down at street level the tower meets the city in shadow. Its base is plain and dark. People hurry past without looking up, long used to its size. Only visitors tend to stop and crane their necks. To those who work here, the tallest tower around is simply the place where the working day begins. At night the upper floors glow against the dark.

A tall building changes how you see a place. From the ground, the city is all around you and hard to grasp. From the top, it lies open and quiet, almost gentle. Riding back down, the streets rise up to meet you, and the noise returns. You step out knowing the city from two heights now, and both of them are true. The memory of that wide, silent view stays with you for days.