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JOHN HANCOCK CENTER

344 metres/1,127 feet
100 stories
Completed: 1969
16th tallest building in the world


John Hancock Center: Chicago's third tallest building.
Including its antennas, the John Hancock Center reaches a height of 457m/1,499f.
As you may notice from most of the pictures, the eastern antenna is slightly taller than the western one.
In 2002, the eastern antenna was retrofitted and subsequently both antenna's were painted white.
On some of the pictures (these were taken in 1999) the building can be seen
with a red and white colored set of antennas with similar heights.
In 2000, part of the western antenna was removed, because it wasn't in use anymore.
The building has an observatory on the 94th floor (314m/1,030f);
price to go up is US$10.80 and - as always with observatories at such heights -
very much worth the price of admission. You will get 360-degree views of Chicago,
and on clear days you can see parts of the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and other parts of Illinois, as well.
The observatory is also home to a skywalk (an open-air viewing area) and a history wall,
with over 100 photos of Chicago (skyscraper) history.

Some more facts:
- when completed in 1969, the John Hancock Center was the third tallest building in the world,
and the tallest outside of New York City;
it remained Chicago's tallest until 1973,
when Aon Center (then named Standard Oil Building) took over;
- designed by structural Engineer Fazlur Khan of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP;
- the building has the highest residences in the world;
- it is home to over 700 apartments;
- as well as several floors of office space and shops on the ground floor and basement areas;
- Because of the X-bracing exterior no inner support beams were necessary,
which greatly increased the usable floor area;
- the 44th floor contains the United States' highest indoor swimming pool;
- building costs were an approximate US$95,000,000.





Click here to go (back) to the city page of Chicago

Or click here to go (back) to the Top 25 of tallest buildings in the world

The building data, the top 10 of tallest buildings and some of the building information are courtesy of
EMPORIS.COM, one of the world's leading architectural resources on tall buildings.

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