'These buildings mean something,' Weismantle said, adding the record-breaking skyscrapers in places like Dubai helped put those destinations on the map. When asked why the distinction ultimately mattered, Wood and Weismantle said the label of tallest skyscraper increasingly gives distinction to a city. Peter Weismantle, who headed the committee, said the diversity ensured no bias would enter into the decision. The height committee was made up of 25 people from 13 countries, 19 cities and 22 different architecture companies. That title would have gone to the original One World Trade Center. This one will always be 1,776.'įor Chicagoans griping that antennas should be counted in the height of the building, Wood said if that were the case, the Willis Tower would never have held the title of the nation's tallest tower. 'The thing about race for the height, that will always change. Can't be much more important than that,' said Childs, architect of One WTC. 'The height is important in that it symbolizes that moment our democracy - 1776. That point was echoed by the building's architect, David Childs. 'In other words, the crowning structure is never to be added to, never to be taken away.' 'And we know that it's a permanent feature because of the sacrosanct aspect of the 1,776 height,' Wood said. On Tuesday, Wood said the height committee reached a consensus that the One World Trade Center's spire was a 'permanent feature.' For example, the structures atop the Willis Tower, which are considered antennas, were extended in 2000. In a five-hour meeting on Friday, the council's Height Committee decided that the structure was, in fact, a spire.Įxplaining why a spire counts towards a building's total height, the council's executive director, Antony Wood, said the 'key word is permanence.'Īntennas are ruled 'technical equipment' that can be altered as the building's needs change. The technical question was whether the 408-foot structure atop the One WTC was a spire, which would count toward the height, or whether it was an antenna, a structure that the committee would not consider to count toward a building's total height. One WTC was built to to be a symbolic 1,776 feet from head to toe, 325 feet higher than Willis Tower's 1,451 feet. The Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a recognized group that determines the height of skyscrapers, announced the decision at a morning news conference at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Bronzeville. 'At the Willis Tower, you have a view that's unprecedented in its beauty and its landscape and its capacity to capture something, something you can't do from an antenna. 'I would just say this to all the experts they gathered in one room: If it looks like an antenna, acts like an antenna, guess what? It is an antenna,' Emanuel said.Įmanuel suggested he'd rather be inside at the Willis than on top of the 'antenna' at the New York skyscraper.

THE LOOP - On the strength and height of its decorative spire, New York's One World Trade Center officially topped Chicago's Willis Tower Tuesday for the title of the nation's tallest building.

Sears tower