The Sears tower was at once the tallest building in the world. The design behind it was revolutionary. It's many rectangles! The Apple building is interesting in it's own right - 100% self sufficient and a new concept of what an office can be.
Not everything can or should be "La Sagrada Familia". That doesn't mean that these other constructions aren't impressive and thoughtful.
I recommend the architecture tour if you make your way to Chicago.
Actually Chicago seem like one of very few places I would really like to visit in US (very photogenic from what I have seen), but I don't see myself visiting US anytime soon with your government attitude since 9/11 (I don't really think Trump is something really evil compared to Obama or Bush, they all essentially destroyed all my interest in visiting US as tourist by imposing all kind of totalitarian practices which go further than Chinese totalitarian gov), same reason why I didn't went to NoKo when living in China, not gonna support such gov with my money. To be fair I am not going to Germany too after Merkel's 2015 invitation to illegals.
Separating people from politics is a good thing to do. You'll find wherever you go there's a lot of people who don't agree with the current state of affairs. I've been many places I think are backwards but then you find there's a lot of decent people there and plenty of interesting things to see and do.
US is not exactly exotic country for European, maybe dream to visit for mainland Chinese but not really appealling to me, much rather i would go to Iran, Morocco, Japan, etc.
so only way i am gonna consider US over these is if they will be extremely friendly to visitors and stop all kind of this laptop ban bullshit (no way i put it in checked baggage) and million questions ESTA or if someone will give me air ticket pretty much for free