The Randolph Tower is a Neogothic skyscraper designed by Karl M. Vitzthum, and built in 1929, for a reported $3.50 million dollars, in Chicago, IL.
Randolph Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as Steuben Club Building.
Its precise street address is 188 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.
The building underwent a major restoration between 2011 and 2012.
Karl M. Vitzthum 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 Steuben Club of Chicago as the Main Developer.
The Randolph Tower can be categorized as a Neogothic building.
The Neo-Gothic style, also known as Gothic Revival, emerged in the United States during the late 19th century, taking inspiration from the Gothic architecture found in Europe from centuries prior.
The Gothic Revival movement took elements characteristic of the Gothic buildings, such as pointed architect, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses, and applied them to newer buildings, even those belonging to typologies that did not exist during the original Gothic period, such as skyscrapers.
Neg-Gothic buildings usually feature pinnacles, gargoyles and other decorative elements that emphasize the verticality of the structure, and include stonework that features the craftsmanship of skilled artisans of the time.
The Randolph Tower was completed in 1929. 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 Karl M. Vitzthum 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 Randolph Tower, it is possible that the design already started showing some traits that would later become characteristic of the art-deco movement.
The Randolph Tower reaches an architectural height of 463ft (141m). It has a total of 45 floors.
When it opened its doors to the public in 1929, the Randolph Tower was primarily used as Commercial space. That however, is no longer the case, and today it mainly provides Residential space, with other complementary uses such as .
The Randolph Tower has a total of 312 residential units throughout its 45 floors.
The Randolph Tower uses a frame structure made of 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.
The facade is a non-load bearing masonry facade. This type of facade became common during the period when buildings, especially taller ones, transitioned from load-bearing wall systems to frame structures.
Frame structures allowed facades to be independent from the building's frame, enabling the use of lighter materials and larger openings. However, it took some time for architects to incorporate these new posibilities into their designs, and so for a while they simply replicated the look and feel fo buildings people where used to seeing.
