Gothic Revival (“Americal Perpendicular Style”)
- Commissioned by publishers of Chicago Tribune (Robert McCormick & J.M.Patterson)
- Contest for “the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world”; with large cash prizes offered, drew proposals from 263 of the foremost international architects (incl. Walter Gropius & Eliel Saarinen)
- brilliant publicity stunt for the Tribune and resulting entries reveal a unique turning point in American architectural history.
- John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood won the competition
- Architecturally conservative, Neo-Gothic style already well established w/Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building (1913)
- Grotesques and gargoyles: Rene Chambellan responsible for architectural sculpture (includes a ref to himself as a frog-faced gargoyle (re his French ancestry)
- Aesop’s fable screen includes Robin Hood (Hood) and a howling dog (Howells)
- top of the tower is designed after the tour de beurre (butter tower) of Rouen Cathedral
- ornate, flying buttresses
- Hall of Inscriptions with quotes re: ideals and responsibilities of the press
- Collection of famous stones and building fragments from around the world collected by correspondents and friends are incorporated into lower reliefs of the building from sites such as Taj Mahal, Parthenon, Hagia Sofia, Palace at Westminster, Great Pyramid, Alamo, Notre Dame, Great Wall of China, Berlin Wall, Angkor Wat.
- 462 feet tall
- The entry that many perceived as the best—a radically simplified tower by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen—took second place and received $20,000. 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. The 1929 Gulf Building, Houston, designed by architects Alfred C Finn, Kenneth Franzheim, and J.E.R. Carpenter, is a close realization of that Saarinen design. Cesar Pelli’s 181 West Madison Street Building in Chicago is also thought to be inspired by Saarinen's design.