Reunion Tower

Stand at the base and tilt your head back. A smooth concrete shaft rises straight up from the ground, pale against the Texas sky. At the very top sits a sphere, a round lattice of struts that looks almost too light for its height. On a warm evening the air here smells of hot pavement and traffic. And somewhere above you, that sphere is quietly getting ready to glow.

This is Reunion Tower. Since the late 1970s it has been one of the easiest ways to find your bearings in Dallas. Drive into the city on almost any highway and the ball appears first, before the glass office towers come into focus. Locals often call it simply 'the ball'. For many people who grew up here, it was the first thing that told them they were nearly home.

The tower opened in 1978. It was built as part of a larger development on the western edge of downtown, together with the Hyatt Regency hotel next door. The project was led by the Hunt family, one of the best-known business families in Texas. The design came from the architecture firm Welton Becket and Associates. Their idea was simple and bold: one tall, thin tower with a sphere on top, easy to recognise from far away.

The tower stands about 561 feet tall, which is roughly 170 metres. That is not the tallest structure in Dallas, and it was never meant to be. Its strength is its shape. The office towers around it are boxes of glass and steel. This one is a column and a ball. Against that skyline, the contrast makes it impossible to miss, even from many kilometres away.

Here is something many visitors walk right past. The name 'Reunion' has nothing to do with family gatherings. It comes from La Réunion, a utopian colony founded near this spot in the 1850s. Settlers from France, Belgium and Switzerland came to build a shared community based on the ideas of the French thinker Charles Fourier. He believed people could live and work together in cooperative groups instead of competing.

The colony did not last long. The soil was hard to farm, the winters were harsher than the settlers expected, and money ran short. Within a few years most of the colonists had moved on. Many of them settled in the young town of Dallas instead. They brought skills as craftspeople, teachers, artists and brewers. So a failed experiment became a quiet gift to the city — and its name now sits on the skyline.

Now look closely at the sphere. It is a geodesic dome, a structure made of many small triangles joined together. This design is light and strong at the same time, which is why engineers like it for domes. At night, the frame becomes a screen. Hundreds of lights on the struts can change colour and show moving patterns. The ball might glow team colours after a game, or flash in rhythm on holidays.

Those lights were upgraded to modern LEDs in the late 2000s. Before that, the sphere had simple bulbs that could only twinkle. Today the display can run full animations across the whole dome. Watch it for a few minutes after dark. You may see waves of colour roll around the globe, or shapes that seem to spin. From a distance, it can look like the ball itself is turning.

The ride up is part of the experience. Elevators carry visitors up the shaft in about a minute, with windows that show the city dropping away below. Your ears may feel the change in height. Then the doors open onto the observation level inside the sphere. The view stretches in every direction, because there are no other tall buildings this close to the tower on its western side.

From the top, you can trace the shape of the city. To the east, the downtown towers stand close together. To the west, the land opens out into wide, flat Texas plains, with highways curving away toward Fort Worth. Below, the Trinity River and its green floodplain cut through the city. On a clear day, the horizon seems to have no end. This flatness is why the tower feels so tall.

Look down toward the nearby streets and you may spot Dealey Plaza. This small, grassy plaza is where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Seen from above, it looks calm and ordinary, with traffic moving past as usual. Many visitors find it a strange moment — to see such a heavy chapter of history from this high, quiet place. The old Texas School Book Depository building stands at its edge.

The upper part of the sphere has also held a slowly rotating restaurant level over the years. The idea of a turning dining room was popular in the era when the tower was built. You would sit at your table, and over the course of a meal the whole city would pass by your window. Whether or not you eat here, notice how the design brings the view to you, instead of you walking to it.

Back at ground level, take a moment before you leave. The tower is connected by walkways to the hotel and to the old Union Station, a historic railway building nearby. Trains still pass close by. Listen for the low rumble of wheels and the sound of the highways all around. This spot has always been about movement — settlers arriving, trains passing, cars flowing in and out of the city.

As you walk away, turn around once more. Watch the ball sit high above the rooftops, steady against the sky. If the sun is setting, its frame may catch the last orange light before the LEDs come on. Somewhere out on the highway, a driver is seeing that same shape right now, and knowing they have reached Dallas. You have just stood underneath it.