風城巨燭（西爾斯）

Forged from stainless aluminum and encased in bronze-tinted glass, the Sears Tower rises majestically over the business sector of Chicago to stand at 518 m as the city's tallest building. Built in 1973 for Sears-Roebuck & Company, the Sears Tower was the highest building in the world until it was topped by the Petronas Towers in Malaysia in 1996.

Designed by architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Sears Tower is composed of nine twenty-three-by-twenty-three-m towers bundled together, a type of design which allows for a building to have unlimited altitude. It is the largest private office complex in the world with a gross area of 410,000 square meters and 109 stories. Occupying an entire downtown Chicago block, the tower is comprised of sufficient steel to build fifty thousand cars, has enough concrete to complete an eight-lane, eight-kilometer-long highway, and enough wire to wrap around the earth one and three quarters times.

Owned today by a Toronto-based real estate investment trust firm, the former home of one of the world's biggest retail chains has become one of Chicago's most prestigious buildings and a haven for some of the city's biggest companies. It is also a must-see for the scores of tourists who flock to it every year to marvel at its formidable elegance and massive spires.

由不銹鋁合金鍛造筋骨，又披上深褐色的玻璃外衣， 518米高的西爾斯大廈昂然聳立在芝加哥的商業中心，它是這座城市最高的建筑。西爾斯大廈是在1973年為西爾斯—羅巴克公司修建的，在1996年馬來西亞“國油雙峰塔”峻工之前，一直是世界最高的建筑。

西爾斯大廈由建筑師史基摩、歐文斯和米瑞爾設計。大廈由九座23米見方的大樓組成，這種設計有無限向上延伸的空間。它是全球最大的私人辦公綜合大樓，占地總面積41萬平方米，樓高109層。大廈可以說占據了整個芝加哥市中心的街區，建構大廈的鋼鐵足以制造五萬部汽車，混凝土足以建造一條八車道八公里長的公路，電線可以繞地球一又四分之三圈。

大廈目前的擁有者是多倫多的一家房地產投資信托公司。西爾斯大廈過去曾是全球最大零售連鎖店的總部所在地，今天已成為芝加哥遠近馳名的建筑之一，也是當地一些大公司的總部。它是觀光客趨之若騖的名勝，游客年年絡繹不絕簇擁而來，贊嘆其令人肅然起敬的豪華氣派及的魁偉尖頂。