Architecture Around the World ................. Other Chicago buildings

Tribune Tower
435 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
Official Tribune Tower Website

Erected:

1923-1925

Architect:

Howells & HoodñJohn Mead Howells and Raymond Hood

Style:

Gothic Revival modeled after the Butter Tower at Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen

Building materials:

Steel and Indiana limestone

Painting:

Tribune Tower, by Carl F. Zoschke

TEXT beneath illustrations



Click on illustrations for larger size

Gothic Revival

 

 

 

Crockets on far left and right pinnacles

Fleur-de-lis

Corbel with carved grotesques

Cartouches in tympanum

Cartouches

 

 

1935 courtyard with a statue of Nathan Hale.

Display window

Display window surround

Ancient Temple

 

 

 

 

 

Grotesque

Corbel with carved grotesques

Grotesque

Grotesque

In 1922, the Chicago Tribune hosted an international design competition for its new headquarters and offered a $50,000 prize for "the most beautiful and eye-catching building in the world." The competition worked brilliantly as a publicity stunt, and the resulting entries still reveal a unique turning point in American architectural history. More than 260 entries were received.

The entry that many perceived as the best - a radically simplified tower by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen - took second place. Saarinen's tower, which anticipated the coming impact of stripped-down modernism on building form, was preferred by critics like Louis Sullivan, and was a strong influence on the next generation of skyscrapers - including Raymond Hood's own subsequent work on the McGraw-Hill Building and Rockefeller Center.

- Wikipedia

See also:



Color photos and their arrangement © 2008 Chuck LaChiusa
| ...Home Page ...| ..Buffalo Architecture Index...| ..Buffalo History Index... .|....E-Mail ...| ..

web site consulting by ingenious, inc.