Bruce Graham | Chicago architect, 84
Bruce Graham, 84, the hard-driving architect of the Willis Tower, once the world's tallest building, and the John Hancock Center, the X-braced giant that became a symbol of Chicago's industrial might, died Saturday from Alzheimer's disease at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla.
Bruce Graham, 84, the hard-driving architect of the Willis Tower, once the world's tallest building, and the John Hancock Center, the X-braced giant that became a symbol of Chicago's industrial might, died Saturday from Alzheimer's disease at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Mr. Graham was the top man at Chicago's biggest architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and had the ear of business leaders and politicians.
Besides the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) and the Hancock Center, which bracket Chicago's skyline, Mr. Graham played a major role in designing such landmark structures as the Inland Steel Building and the 1986 expansion of McCormick Place.
The 1,451-foot, 110-story Sears Tower reigned as the world's tallest building from 1973 to 1996, when it lost its title to the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Chicago tower, which was renamed last year for a British insurance brokerage, remains the nation's tallest building.
- Chicago Tribune