THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604140086
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Is too. Is not. Is too! Is NOT!
So goes the discussion over the world's tallest building.
Is it in Chicago, home of the 1,450-foot Sears Tower (antennas not included)? Or is it in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where the upstart Petronas Towers are nearing completion? Without spires, the Petronas complex is 209 feet shorter than the roof of the Sears Tower. With spires, it's 33 feet taller.
If Sears' antennas were allowed - which a panel decided against on Friday - it would remain the ranking behemoth. But if spires are included, why not antennas?
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (yes, there really is such an organization) reiterated Friday that it does not consider antennas or TV and radio towers part of a building's ``structural top.''
The council, based at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, is devoted to high-rise design and construction. Eight executive committee members unanimously voted Friday to keep the existing standards - which give the ``tallest'' distinction to the two towers in Malaysia - but the official tally will come in about a month when the six absent members vote by mail, said Lynn Beedle, the council's chairman.
How important is the Sears Tower to Chicago? How does the phrase ``Chicago, Home of the World's Third-Largest Building'' strike you?
Gerald Johnson, chairman of the Chicago Committee on High Rise Buildings, admits the issue is a matter of ego and politics.
``Everybody wants to be the tallest, the biggest, the best,'' he said.
But, he said, not having the tallest building won't make the 1.5 million annual Sears visitors forsake Chicago for Kuala Lumpur.
``I don't think anybody has not gone to New York in the last 25 years because the Empire State Building is the second- or third-tallest building,'' he said.
Despite the board's ruling, the battle is unlikely to subside.
Construction begins next year on the Shanghai Financial Center, designed to stand 1,509 feet - 26 higher than Petronas and 59 feet taller than the Sears Tower. by CNB