Discover the genius behind the design.
The developers of John Hancock Center were lucky to stumble on a team of architects ahead of their time, both in terms of engineering and design aesthetics.
The architects
The team was headed by Bruce Graham (Architect and Design Partner) and Fazlur Khan (Chief Structural Engineer) of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a firm known for their cost-efficient skyscrapers. SOM was driven by the principal made famous by Mies van der Rohe's motto 'less is more'. 'Less is more' also meant more space to play with for interior designers.
Interpreting the brief
"The design of the John Hancock Center, in Chicago, was influenced by its unique site. Just off Lake Shore Drive, it is surrounded by huge, residential high-rise buildings and yet faces one of the city's most attractive commercial streets.
(The developers) insisted on producing a tall building with residences above, offices and commercial uses below. The search for a new kind of structure which would accommodate multiple uses and also express the scale and grandeur of a one-hundred-story tower, lead Dr. Kahn and me to the diagonal tube.
It was as essential to us to expose the structure of this mammoth as it is to perceive the structure of the Eiffel Tower, for Chicago, honesty of structure has become a tradition."
Bruce Graham in "Bruce Graham of SOM."
New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1989.
Architectural/design highlights
- Gutsy, masculine design in the tradition of industrial Chicago.
- Building design eliminated the need for inner support beams, greatly increasing amount of available floor space.
- Design also minimized the use of steel, saving an estimated $15 million.
- The design concept allows only five to eight inches of sway in a 60mph wind; tested to withstand winds of 132 miles-per-hour.
- The center occupies only 40% of site space, creating rare open space on a bustling thoroughfare.
- The outer skin of high-density black aluminum contrasts with 11,459 extra-thick, glare-proof, bronze glass windowpanes.
- The building is shaped like a wedge, creating the illusion that it is even taller. This was drafted to balance the need for extra parking/commercial space below, and, smaller residential areas above.
Distinctive X-bracing
John Hancock Center is characterized by the distinctive X-shaped external bracing that has made it an architectural icon. And for that we can thank engineer, Fazlur Khan. He pioneered this system to derive higher performance from tall structures and open up the usable floor space (the X-bracing virtually eliminates the need for interior columns).