A city famed for high-rise is about to add a “superfast glass elevator” to the side of an 82-storey skyscraper which looks eerily like one of the former, ill-fated World Trade Center twin towers in New York City.
The glass lift will be installed on the exterior of one of Chicago’s many notable towers, the Aon Center. Those behind the project hope the lift will become a major tourist attraction – not quite theme-park-style, but something like it.
The lift will launch thrill-seekers into the air at a speed of 16.6 feet per second, FastCompany.com reports. That translates into a little over 18 km/h – but it seems a lot faster when you are going straight up.
It will be the tallest (and fastest) external lift in North America, though still 21 metres short of current world record-holder, the Bailong elevator in Zhangjiajie National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in China.
The plan also includes a “sky summit,” a glassy pod that would dangle visitors off of the roof’s edge, as below, according to reports.
‘Sky Summit’
If the Aon Center skyscraper (see below) looks similar to the two former, ill-fated World Trade Center towers in New York City, there may be a reason. According to Wikipedia, the Aon Center “employs a tubular steel-framed structural system with V-shaped perimeter columns to resist earthquakes, reduce sway, minimise column bending, and maximize column-free space.
“This construction method was also used for the former World Trade Center towers in New York City,” Wikipedia points out.
The Aon Center skyscraper was originally the Standard Oil Building, headquarters of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. It was completed in 1973, the same year the former World Trade Center opened in New York. The Standard Oil Building was the tallest building in Chicago and the fourth-tallest in the world, earning it the nickname “Big Stan”. A year later, the Sears Tower took the title as Chicago’s (and the world’s) tallest building.
Aon Centre skyscraper in Chicago
Archinect reports the Aon Center lift in its glass-and-steel column is being designed by Chicago-based architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz, a company which has also just been selected as part of an international competition to design a new expansion to Chicago O’Hare airport.
The glass elevator will be anchored to the northwest corner of the skyscraper every fourth floor. It will whisk visitors up to the new Aon Center Observatory, a public observation area that will offer a 360-degree panorama of Chicago.
The new lift is slated to open “within three years”, according to FastCompany.com.
Aon Tower, view from the sky
Written by Peter Needham
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