Chicago Tribune Tower competition

Chicago Tribune Tower competition
Name	Chicago Tribune Tower competition
Location	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Start date	1922
Architect	multiple entrants
Client	Chicago Tribune
Outcome	selection of John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood design

Chicago Tribune Tower competition The Chicago Tribune Tower competition was a 1922 international architectural contest organized by the Chicago Tribune seeking a new headquarters in Chicago. The contest attracted prominent practitioners and emerging designers from United States, Europe, and beyond, producing a wide array of proposals that engaged debates in architecture, urban planning, and modernism. The resulting discourse involved figures associated with Art Deco, Gothic Revival, and Beaux-Arts traditions, and had lasting implications for skyscraper design in the 20th century.

Background and Organization

The competition was announced by Joseph Medill Patterson, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, with a public brief embracing an international field including entrants from United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Netherlands. The jury included notable names such as Daniel Burnham advocates' successors and critics like Graham, Anderson, Probst & White alumni and leading critics associated with The New York Times debates. The Tribune offered a substantial prize purse and required detailed submissions referencing Chicago zoning aspirations, proximity to Chicago River, Magnificent Mile, and the Loop business district. The contest coincided with debates following the Burnham Plan of Chicago and the City Beautiful movement, engaging commentators from The Architectural Record, The New York Times, The New Republic, and The Atlantic Monthly.

Entries and Notable Submissions

Entrants ranged from established firms like McKim, Mead & White and Adler & Sullivan protégés to avant-garde designers allied with Le Corbusier sympathizers and members of the Prairie School network. Submissions included monumental neo-Gothic schemes by teams linked to Cass Gilbert and Bertram Goodhue, modernist glass towers echoing Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius, and eclectic historicist proposals inspired by Notre-Dame de Paris precedents and Westminster Abbey. Notable submissions came from John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood (collaboration with Ralph Modjeski-era engineers), Eliel Saarinen, Adolf Loos-influenced contenders, and a scheme by Erich Mendelsohn-affiliated modernists. Other participants included Homer Price, Ralph Walker, William van Alen, and teams tied to Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni.

The entries were exhibited publicly at venues like Art Institute of Chicago and attracted commentary from critics such as Lewis Mumford, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, and Philip Johnson. Press coverage referenced precedents including Woolworth Building, Singer Building, Metropolitan Life Tower, and Guaranty Building, and debated aesthetic lineages connecting to Gothic Revival in the United States and Dutch Functionalism.

Winning Design and Construction

The winning design, by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, proposed a neo-Gothic tower sited near Tribune Tower site on Michigan Avenue with setbacks and a crown referencing Chartres Cathedral and Rouen Cathedral silhouettes. Construction involved contractors and engineers associated with Turner Construction Company-era techniques, structural steel innovations pioneered by firms influenced by A.J. Alschuler-type practices, and facade craftsmen versed in Indiana Limestone masonry used in projects like Wrigley Building. Groundbreaking ceremonies included dignitaries from Chicago Board of Trade and press figures from Hearst Corporation rivals.

The tower was completed in the mid-1920s and integrated modern mechanical systems comparable to those in Equitable Building and 36-story precedents. Subsequent additions and interior fit-outs engaged designers tied to Sullivan's legacy and firms influenced by William Le Baron Jenney's early skyscraper experiments. The structure hosted editorial operations of the Chicago Tribune and became a landmark in Chicago's Loop skyline.

Architectural Significance and Criticism

Contemporaries praised the winning tower for its craftsmanship, vertical emphasis, and symbolic civic presence, drawing comparisons to European cathedrals and American skyscraper exemplars like the Woolworth Building. Critics associated with Modern Architecture movements—followers of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Walter Gropius—argued the Gothic vocabulary was anachronistic compared to the functionalist types advanced by De Stijl and Bauhaus practitioners. Architectural historians such as Vincent Scully and Nikolaus Pevsner later positioned the competition within broader narratives contrasting historicist revivalism with emergent International Style trajectories.

Debates engaged urbanists from Chicago School (architecture) lineages and commentators from institutions like Columbia University and Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies. The building's ornamentation prompted discussion among conservators linked to Historic American Buildings Survey traditions and critics tracking the transition from ornamented skyscrapers to glass-and-steel curtain walls exemplified by later projects like Seagram Building.

Legacy and Influence on Skyscraper Design

The competition amplified Chicago's role as a laboratory for skyscraper innovation, influencing architects affiliated with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Kohn Pedersen Fox, and other later practices. It underscored tensions between revivalist expression and modernist functionalism that animated debates leading to the International Style exhibitions and publications by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The open-call format inspired subsequent international contests for civic buildings in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, London, and Paris, and informed professional discourse at institutions like American Institute of Architects and Royal Institute of British Architects.

The Tribune competition's archive—held in repositories connected to Newberry Library and university collections—continues to be studied by scholars from University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Columbia University for its impact on design pedagogy and corporate patronage of architecture. Its aesthetic and procedural outcomes echoed in adaptive reuse conversations and landmark preservation efforts involving City of Chicago Landmarks Commission and national preservation entities.

Category:Architecture competitions