The first building in America, exceeding 100 meters in height, was the City Hall, built in 1895 in the city of Milwaukee. Its height was 107.6 meters. This record figure was broken after 4 years by a building erected in New York. This is the Park Row Building, which in height along with the City Hall spire held the championship until 1909.
The article describes some of America's tallest and most interesting skyscrapers.
Curious fact from history
When the monstrous by those standards Met Life Building (height - 213.4 m) was built in New York in 1909, it became the main attraction of the city. An interesting fact is that this skyscraper was built when the population of the city was only 270 thousand people. At that time there was not even a normal pavement in it. Apparently, people wanted to live not just in a city, but in a village in which there is something to be proud of.
The first tallest building in the United States, Milwaukee City Hall, today takes far from a leading position, but it held its first place in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee for 78 years.
The highest skyscrapers in the USA
USA is a country of skyscrapers. In this state are the tallest buildings in the world. It is the United States that has long remained the legislator in terms of architectural ideas and innovations in the construction of skyscrapers. In this state, today there are only 706 tallest buildings that exceed 150 meters in size. Initially, the leadership in the construction of such buildings belonged to the city of Chicago, but further improvement and development of skyscrapers took place in New York.
Two cities are still leading in the number of high-rise buildings in the country. They are home to skyscrapers that are famous all over the world and become famous thanks to their unique architectural ideas, record heights and the most diverse viewing platforms. Below is an overview of some of the tallest buildings in the USA.
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In 1972, the Aon Center was built in Chicago. It consists of 83 floors, its height is 346.3 meters. At that time, it was the tallest building in the world with marble cladding. Subsequently, under the influence of winds, this skin began to crumble.
The Aon Center was again faced with white granite in 1992, and quite a lot of money was spent on it (half of the total cost spent on building the building).
Bank of America Tower
The 55-story skyscraper, erected in New York in Manhattan, has a height of 365.8 meters. The building reached this maximum value in December 2007, when an upper block with a spire 77.9 meters high was installed on its top. At that time, it became one of the tallest buildings in the United States.
A feature of the skyscraper is the presence of an accumulation system and subsequent purification of rainwater, as well as an air filtration system. In addition, a system was installed here that produces ice at night from the same rainwater, which is used during the day to cool the building.
Empire State Building
When the famous towers of the World Trade Center in New York (2001) collapsed, this building became the tallest in New York and lasted in first place until 2012.
This skyscraper is one of the historical national monuments of the United States. The Empire State Building, built in New York in Manhattan in 1931, has 103 floors. Its height reaches 381 meters. Until 1970, this skyscraper occupied the first positions among the most famous and tallest buildings in the world.
Trump tower
Hotel-skyscraper (international hotel), named after the President of the United States, has 96 floors. The height of this building is 415 meters. In 2001, it was announced that the skyscraper would become the tallest building in the world. However, after the tragic events that happened in September 2001, the construction plans were revised and reduced, and therefore the construction of the building underwent changes by 2009.
The tower, built in the style of Chicago architecture, consists of three parts. The height of each of them is at the level of a neighboring building. This ensures visual continuity with the surrounding urban landscape.
432 Park Avenue
This is the highest residential building in the world. Its height is 426 m. The skyscraper in terms of roof level is the tallest building in America, but several structures exceed it in size due to the spiers installed on them.
All 85 floors of the building are square. On each side there are six windows. Each floor is 3.84 meters high, and the penthouse located on the top floor, with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms, costs $ 95 million.
Willis tower
The skyscraper was built in 1974 in the city of Chicago. It has 110 floors, the total height of which is 443.2 meters. He held the status of the tallest building in the world for 25 years.
This structure consists of nine pipes in the form of a square. All of them rise to 50 floors, then 7 of them rise to 66 floors, and up to the 90th - 5. The last two pipes form the upper 20 floors. The Willis Tower until 2009 was called Sears Tower. This name belongs to the former at that time tenant of this greatest building.
World Trade Center No. 1
Today, the tallest building in the US is the Freedom Tower, or the center of international trade. This is the greatest modern building in the entire Western Hemisphere (541.3 m). This tower (104 floors) was built in the northwestern part of the place where the shopping center complex, which was destroyed in 2001, was located along with the famous twin towers.
The construction of this skyscraper was completed in 2013. A metal 124-meter spire weighing 758 tons was installed on it.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the reason for the emergence of such a number of high-rise buildings in the USA is the extremely rapidly growing demand for them. Numerous companies and banks have always sought to strengthen their image by creating impressive and most visible modern buildings. And it was such a way to stand out that became especially demanded - by the height and grandeur of buildings.