Tribune Tower

by Suzanne Hanney

Tribune Tower, completed in 1925 on the north side of the Michigan Avenue bridge, reflects the desire of then-Tribune President, Col. Robert R. McCormick, that the newspaper be seen as important internationally. It is the product of an international design competition to create nothing less than “the most beautiful office building in the world,” according to the Chicago Architecture Center website (www.architecture.org).

The Tribune announced the competition on its 75th anniversary in 1922, with $100,000 in prize money, including $50,000 to the winner. One of the largest and most important architectural competitions in American history, it drew 260 entries from 23 nations.

Although some architects conjured artful designs ranging from a Doric column to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, winners Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells of New York delivered a design that filled the space with the maximum rentable office space. Their Gothic Revival design combined a lower office block contemporary to the period while the building’s crown imitated the Butter Tower of the 13th century medieval Rouen Cathedral in France.

In what amounts to “a cathedral for journalism,” the building’s façade incorporates fragments from some of the world’s most historically important buildings (the Great Pyramid at Giza, Westminster Abbey, the Taj Mahal and more), brought home by the Tribune’s foreign correspondents at Col. McCormick’s request. The lobby features famous quotations on freedom of the press from Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Tribune Tower

Annie Evans, courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Center