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Skyscraper Council Names One World Trade Nation's Tallest

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The skyscraper illuminati have spoken and One World Trade Center is now the tallest building in the United States (and the hemisphere; CN Tower doesn't qualify as a building). The vote of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's (CTBUH) height committee (meeting for several hours over the weekend) strips the Willis Sears Tower of its 40-year reign as the nation's most commanding skyscraper. One World Trade's 400-foot mast was deemed a spire#&8212;integral to the building's design aethetic—and not merely an antenna. This despite the developer's decision to scale-back the mast's sculptural ornament. Sears went down to Malaysia's Petronas Towers in a similar fashion in the 1990s. There's little doubt that builders around the world are padding heights with spires, many exceeding one-third of a tower's overall height. Were it not for the unavoidable sense of nationhood brought on by 1 WTC's overtly-symbolic 1,776-foot height, Chicagoans would mope their way through the day. You can have the title back, New York. You've been through a lot.
·Willis Tower loses to One World Trade Center as Nation's Tallest [Trib]