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Tower of the Americas

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1968, Ford, Powell and Carson and Félix Candela. HemisFair Plaza
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )
  • (The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Built as the centerpiece of the city's Hemis-Fair'68 exposition, the tower, built of slip-formed reinforced concrete, is the tallest structure in the city at 622 feet. Atop the shaft are six levels of observation decks and a restaurant that rotate once an hour. The tower is a collaborative effort between Boone Powell and noted Mexican architect-engineer Félix Candela, and is a precursor to numerous similar civic monuments from Toronto, Canada, to Seattle, Washington.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

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Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Tower of the Americas", [San Antonio, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-SA63.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 161-161.

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