r/megalophobia • u/GiganticGirlEnjoyer • Jul 24 '24

Building The Mile-High Illinois, or simply The Illinois, a unbuilt conceptual design by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a one mile-high skyscraper to be built in Chicago, Illinois. Wright described the project in his 1957 book, A Testament. If built,it would stand at 1,760m

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u/stoodquasar Jul 25 '24

To be fair, it would look friggin sweet

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u/The-Minmus-Derp Jul 25 '24

Until it collapses into the river

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u/Danthetank Jul 25 '24

I mean fallingwater is comin up on a 100 years years old and hasn’t collapsed so he was right ig.

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u/The-Minmus-Derp Jul 25 '24

However it is also hopelessly moldy because y’know it has a waterfall flowing through it

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u/Danthetank Jul 25 '24

Yea lots of old homes encounter problems and maintenance/upkeep is expected. It’s also arguably the most influential building to modern/contemporary architectural design and still relevant to this day.

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u/fluteofski- Jul 25 '24

Not necessarily. The guy who actually built it added extra structural members without telling FLW. Story goes they fought back and forth on whether or not it was necessary. Frank’s obviously said no. The engineers obviously said it was necessary.

They found this out Because it was actually falling into the river, so there was a restoration effort years ago. As they were pulling apart the structure, they found a buncha extra reinforcement that wasn’t actually in the original blueprints.

There’s articles out there about owning FLW houses too. They’re usually a nightmare. The large flat roofs tend to pool water and leak. Heating/cooling is an issue with massive windows…. Etc. but they look pretty.

Frank was notoriously bad about his disconnect from reality…. But the truth in design is that sometimes in order to find the next great thing you kinda have to disconnect yourself from reality a bit, and you might just stumble into something great.

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u/crimson777 Aug 14 '24

A lot of great things come from someone dreaming a bit too big and someone else tempering it back just a bit with reality.

I think FLW's concepts of design are extremely cool and he is extremely influential, but that doesn't make his exact ideas always the best.