Houston Tower

The Houston Tower was an ambitious plan from the 1970s for a very tall building in Houston. It was meant to be 500 stories high, which would have made it one of the tallest buildings ever imagined. The idea came from an American architect named Robert B. Sobel, who worked with an engineer named Nat W. Krahl from Rice University. They thought this huge building could be built using special triangular tubes that were 200 feet on each side.

Sobel had started thinking about a 500-story building as early as 1974. The design showed that, at the time, the technology and materials were ready to make such a tall building if anyone wanted to build it. If the Houston Tower had been built, it would have covered 16 city blocks, an area of 250 by 250 feet. The way it was designed looked a bit like the Sears Tower, but on a much bigger scale. Even though it was never built, the Houston Tower remains one of the tallest buildings ever fully planned.