Studio IV Blog #4 - The Dallas Trip

Reunion Tower

Location: 300 Reunion Blvd E, Dallas, TX 75207

Building Type: 561' tall observation tower open to public

Architect: Welton Becket and Associates

Years of Construction: 1976-1978

Cost: $8 million

Reunion Tower is supported by a concrete structure. There are 64, 60-foot "legs" under the concrete "tabletop" that serve as the tower's foundation. The table top is 10 feet deep and 90 feet in diameter.

Reunion Tower was named after a utopic socialist community formed in west Dallas in 1855, La Reunion.

The construction of Reunion Tower is helpful to study while designing my own projects because large scale commercial projects never use materials such as wood and nails for structural processes, and instead use concrete and steel. Using more primitive materials such as wood have been a common theme in my past designs. A deeper understanding of how to apply concrete and steel opens up the horizons of design. As neat as the finishing details of the tower are (the observatory, lighting, etc.), none of that would be possible without the initial foundation it rests on.

Sketch of Reunion Tower shows the simplistic structural design of 4 "legs" made of concrete which are used to support the observatory ball atop.