Chicago Tribune Sign

ADDRESS: 435 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL  ARCHITECTS: John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood  YEARS BUILT: 1923-25 Nobody builds signs like this anymore. The "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" sign on the south face of the printing plant building adjacent to Tribune Tower was not designed to be beautiful. It was built in 1964 from heavy-gauge steel sheet stock. Industrial fabrication. The same logic as a water tower or a loading dock. Put the name where people can see it. Make it out of something that survives Chicago winters. Do not overthink it. What you see in this photograph is the result of that thinking, plus sixty years of weather doing its work. To understand what the sign is, you have to understand what it was not. The story begins with a competition. In 1922, the Chicago Tribune announced that it would build "the most beautiful office building in the world." This was Colonel Robert R. McCormick speaking, a man who had served artillery in World War I and ran his paper with the same convic