At the confluence of the Chicago River with Lake Michigan in 2009, a tower with a height of 444 m (609 m with a spire) will appear, which will become one of the tallest structures in the world. Only the Burj Tower currently under construction in Dubai (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill project) can boast of a higher height - 701 m. At the moment, Taipei 101 in Taiwan owns the palm in the world.
The appearance of the record-breaking building in Chicago can be called more than appropriate - this city, which is considered the birthplace of skyscrapers, is home to 3 of the 15 tallest buildings in the world. The lead among them belongs to Sears Tower (442 m), a 1970s SOM project. Also, this skyscraper is still the tallest building in North America. Billionaire Donald Trump had been planning a 150-story residential skyscraper in Chicago for several years (again a SOM project), but after September 11, 2001, he reduced it to 92 tiers (414 m).
The new Fordham Spye, named after the developer, will also be a luxury residential building, with a hotel occupying 20 of its lower floors. The elongated, slightly twisted shape (each next floor is rotated by 2º relative to the previous one, which gives a total of 270º from the base to the spire) affects the amount of usable area: on 115 floors it will be only 85.5 thousand square meters. m (in the old Sears Tower its 418 thousand).
Apartments of various sizes will be located there, costing from $ 600,000 for a one-room apartment to $ 5 million for an apartment that occupies an entire floor.
Calatrava, who has already demonstrated his ability to design residential skyscrapers in the Swinging Torso in Sweden and the planned tower in New York, said his goal was to create an elegant, graceful design for Chicago, not break height records.
