Sulaiman Bin Ahmed
Chicago Tribune tower
The tribune tower is located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. This neo-Gothic skyscraper was the home of the Chicago Tribune, Tribune Media, and tronc, Inc., formerly known as Tribune Publishing. The original Tribune Tower was built in 1868, but was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The building opened again in 1925 as headquarters for the Chicago Tribune. In early 2018, work began converting the entire office building into condominiums which will be completed by 2020. In 1922, on the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the newspaper announced an international competition for a new downtown headquarters. The competition sought “for Chicago, the most beautiful building in the world,” and it offered $100,000 in prize money, $50,000 to the winner. The competition attracted 263 entries from 23 countries, Countries represented in the competition includes: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland and the United State of America. Most of the designs emanated from the U.S. and Europe. Most American entries understood the profitability of the site and maximized the amount of rentable office space in their designs while many of the European entries, however, sacrificed business practicality for a more monumental form. Austrian architect Adolf Loos proposed a giant Doric column, Italian architect Saverio Dioguardi proposed a large classical arch resembling the Arch De Triomphe in Paris. American Architect Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells won the entry i.e. Raymond Hood who would later build the Rockefeller Center in New York - nd John Howell won the first place due to their familiar Gothic design and because the building fulfilled the needs of the newspaper best.
Hood and Howells’ winning Gothic Revival tower used architectural ideas borrowed from the past. The lower office block is sheathed in Indiana limestone with vertical piers and horizontal spandrels characteristic of Art Deco; embedded in its walls are stones from historic monuments and battlefields from around the world including Bunker Hill, Omaha Beach, Westminster Abbey, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Forbidden City, and the Kremlin. The building’s crown recalls a Medieval European tower, imitating the Butter Tower of the 13th-century Rouen Cathedral in France. Inside, visitors encounter a Hall of Inscriptions. Carved into the lobby walls are quotations from Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The Tribune Tower was completed in 1925 and reaches a height of 141 meters. What Howells and Hood did not know was that the paper's publisher and owner, the very opinionated Colonel Robert McCormick, had some rather intriguing plans for the exterior walls of the building. For years, McCormick had Tribune newspaper employees collect fragments of famous edifices from around the world. After the building was completed in 1925, workers began to attach these architectural fragments to these walls in order to inspire and edify visitors who might be passing by along Michigan Avenue. The building cost was estimated at $8.5 million, its height from sidewalk to the top is 456 feet and it has 36 stories. 9,316 tons of Steel was used in the building's inner frame, 13,160 tons of Indiana limestone used on the building exterior. 150 rocks, bricks and other artifacts are embedded on the exterior of the first floor.
REFERENCE
Osmond, L. J. (2018). Tribune Tower building, Chicago, Illinois, United States
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