Tribune Tower

Tribune Tower is a neo-Gothic skyscraper on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, built as the headquarters of the Chicago Tribune newspaper and completed in 1925. Rising 462 feet on the north bank of the Chicago River, it is one of the most celebrated results of an early 20th-century architectural competition and a defining building of the Magnificent Mile.

Its origin was a landmark contest. In 1922 the Tribune held an international competition to design "the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world," drawing more than 260 entries from around the globe. The winning design by New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood crowned the tower with an elaborate flying-buttressed crown modeled on the Butter Tower of Rouen Cathedral in France, cladding the whole in limestone with rich Gothic detail.

A distinctive feature is embedded in its base: fragments of famous structures from around the world, including pieces of the Great Wall of China, the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, and Notre-Dame, were brought back by Tribune correspondents and set into the lower walls, each labeled with its origin. A later addition even includes a fragment of moon rock. The correspondents' stones were gathered over decades from more than 150 sites worldwide, and their engraved labels turn the building's lower walls into an informal atlas of famous monuments.

For visitors, the building was converted to residences in the late 2010s, so the interior is largely private, but the exterior remains a highlight of any walk along Michigan Avenue. The wall of embedded stones rewards close inspection, and the tower's Gothic crown pairs with the adjacent white Wrigley Building for one of Chicago's signature streetscapes at the DuSable Bridge. The location is central, flat, and accessible, and the tower is floodlit and striking after dark.