Houston Tower | |
---|---|
General information | |
Status | Vision |
Location | Houston, Texas |
Cost | USD 1.5 billion |
Height | |
Roof | 6,863 ft (2,092 m) |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 500 |
The Houston Tower was a plan for a 500-story skyscraper conceived in the 1970s to be built in Houston, originally designed as a research project for the feasibility of a 500-story building. [1] American Architect Robert B. Sobel of Emery Roth & Sons, with engineer and fellow American Nat W. Krahl of Rice University, created a concept for a 500-story building made from 200-foot sided bundled triangular tubes. [2] [3] Sobel had theorized the construction of a 500-story building as early as 1947. [4]
According to Emery Roth & Sons, the project showed that the technology and materials existed to build a 500-story (or taller) building if someone wished to do so. [1] [5] Since its first inception, it has remained one of the tallest buildings ever fully envisioned, and would have taken up 16 city blocks of 250x250 feet if constructed. [2] Its design features are reminiscent of the Sears Tower, which utilizes a similar construction pattern albeit on a smaller scale.
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise buildings. Historically, the term first referred to buildings with between 10 and 20 stories when these types of buildings began to be constructed in the 1880s. Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces.
Emery Roth was a Hungarian-American architect of Hungarian-Jewish descent who designed many New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-Arts and Art Deco details. His sons continued in the family enterprise, largely expanding the firm under the name Emery Roth & Sons.
The architecture of Houston includes a wide variety of award-winning and historic examples located in various areas of the city of Houston, Texas. From early in its history to current times, the city inspired innovative and challenging building design and construction, as it quickly grew into an internationally recognized commercial and industrial hub of Texas and the United States.
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