Chicago Tribune Tower

The Chicago Tribune Tower is a Neogothic skyscraper designed by Howells & Hood, and built between 1923 and 1925 in Chicago, IL. Howells & Hood was commisioned to design the building after winning the competition that was held in 1922.

Its precise street address is 435 N Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.

The Chicago Tribune Tower is a structure of significant importance both for the city of Chicago and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Neogothic style. Because of that, the Chicago Tribune Tower was officially declared as a national landmark on January 2^nd 1989.

The building has been restored 3 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 1948, 1965 and 1990.

Howells & Hood was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Robert R. McCormick as the Main Developer.

The Chicago Tribune Tower can be categorized as a Neogothic building.

The Chicago Tribune Tower was completed in 1925. These were the late days of the Neogothic movement, which had been around for almost 200 years at the time.

Art-deco would soon take over US architecture, and therefore, even though Howells & Hood didn't venture into what was cutting edge in terms of style at the time, and took instead a more conservative approach to the design of the Chicago Tribune Tower, it is possible that the design already started showing some traits that would later become characteristic of the art-deco movement.

The Chicago Tribune Tower uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a very light colored, almost whiteish limestone.

Other materials found at the Chicago Tribune Tower include, cream colored travertine marble, found in the lobby, oak, seen on decorative beams attached to the cealing of some spaces throughout the building, carved stone figures, found on the facade's upper floors, and bronce, which many of the oricinal chandeliers were made of.