有声英文阅读-风城巨烛（西尔斯）（在线收听）

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.
 

由不锈铝合金锻造筋骨，又披上深褐色的玻璃外衣， 518米高的西尔斯大厦昂然耸立在芝加哥的商业中心，它是这座城市最高的建筑。西尔斯大厦是在1973年为西尔斯—罗巴克公司修建的，在1996年马来西亚“国油双峰塔”峻工之前，一直是世界最高的建筑。

西尔斯大厦由建筑师史基摩、欧文斯和米瑞尔设计。大厦由九座23米见方的大楼组成，这种设计有无限向上延伸的空间。它是全球最大的私人办公综合大楼，占地总面积41万平方米，楼高109层。大厦可以说占据了整个芝加哥市中心的街区，建构大厦的钢铁足以制造五万部汽车，混凝土足以建造一条八车道八公里长的公路，电线可以绕地球一又四分之三圈。

大厦目前的拥有者是多伦多的一家房地产投资信托公司。西尔斯大厦过去曾是全球最大零售连锁店的总部所在地，今天已成为芝加哥远近驰名的建筑之一，也是当地一些大公司的总部。它是观光客趋之若骛的名胜，游客年年络绎不绝簇拥而来，赞叹其令人肃然起敬的豪华气派及的魁伟尖顶。