{"product_id":"tribune-wrigley-burnett-vertical-alignment","title":"Tribune–Wrigley–Burnett Vertical Alignment","description":"\u003ch3\u003eA CENTURY IN ONE FRAME\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the height of the Optima Signature, the city arranges itself into something I did not plan and cannot explain. To the left stands the Leo Burnett Building. In the center rises the luminous white terra-cotta of the Wrigley Building. To the right, the dark, intricate tower of the Chicago Tribune Building anchors the skyline.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not simply a view. It is a compressed timeline.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eCHICAGO TRIBUNE TOWER (1925)\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Mead Howells and Raymond Hood designed the Tribune Tower in response to one of the most famous architectural competitions in history. In 1922, the Chicago Tribune invited architects worldwide to design \"the most beautiful office building in the world.\" The winning entry rejected modernism entirely. It reached instead toward French Gothic precedent, flying buttresses abstracted into the logic of a steel frame, traceried windows rising in disciplined verticals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIts facade is a cathedral translated into commerce. Embedded in its lower walls are fragments of global monuments: stones from the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China, and Notre Dame. The building is a literal archive of civilization. It stands as a monument to journalism and to Chicago's confidence in the 1920s. A city willing to declare beauty as a competitive act.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen I photograph it, the Tribune Tower provides shadow, texture, and medieval silhouette against the city’s modernity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eWRIGLEY BUILDING (1920–1924)\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf the Tribune is Gothic ambition, the Wrigley Building is luminous elegance. Graham, Anderson, Probst \u0026amp; White designed it, drawing inspiration from the Giralda Tower in Seville. It was built in two phases, connected by a skybridge over an alley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClad in gleaming white terra-cotta chosen specifically to reflect light, the building was meant to project optimism and corporate clarity. Its clock tower rises in setbacks and marks Michigan Avenue with ceremonial precision. At night, it glows. By day, it reads as sculpted light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom my vantage point, the Wrigley often becomes the compositional anchor. It occupies the center like a metronome: not aggressive, not dark, but steady. It holds Chicago's early 20th-century transition from industrial grit to polished commercial power in its white skin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eLEO BURNETT BUILDING (1989)\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRoche Dinkeloo completed the Leo Burnett Building in 1989, reintroducing historical references into late-modern Chicago. Rising in dark granite and glass, its most recognizable feature is its lantern crown, an illuminated architectural gesture that acknowledges its neighbors without imitating them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 50 stories, it speaks the language of postmodern restraint. Its vertical piers echo the Tribune's upward thrust. Its illuminated crown nods to Wrigley's clock tower. Yet it remains distinctly late-20th century: corporate, polished, self-aware.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my image, it forms the third note in the rhythm. Dark against light. Solid against ornament. It completes the triad.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eOPTIMA SIGNATURE (2017)\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then there is the building from which I photograph them. Designed by Optima, Inc, the Optima Signature represents contemporary Chicago: glass curtain walls, exposed concrete slabs, rhythmic balconies forming horizontal bands.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike its neighbors, it does not rely on ornament. Its pattern is structural repetition. It belongs to the era of lifestyle high-rise living along the river, an architecture of transparency and layered horizontals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the 43rd floor, the earlier buildings become framed objects. Optima is not competing with them. It is observing them. Its modern grid becomes the quiet, rational lens through which the city's older monuments are reinterpreted.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is where I stand. This is where I look.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eWHAT I SEE\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes this grouping powerful is not proximity. It is a contrast across eras: 1920s Neo-Gothic ambition in the Tribune, 1920s Beaux-Arts-inspired luminosity in the Wrigley, 1980s postmodern corporate verticality in the Burnett, 2010s contemporary residential modernism in the Optima. Stone. Terra-cotta. Granite. Glass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach building is confident in its time. None apologizes for its era. Together they form a layered argument about Chicago itself, a city that never demolishes its past to prove its present but instead stacks history vertically along the river.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the 43rd floor, they align into a pattern: three towers along a corridor of water, seen from a fourth tower that did not yet exist when the first three defined the skyline.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is not just architecture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is Chicago in four acts, and I am pressing the shutter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Igor Menaker Fine Art","offers":[{"title":"MATTED \/ 08x10","offer_id":51072136315158,"sku":null,"price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"MATTED \/ 16x20","offer_id":51072136347926,"sku":null,"price":125.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"FRAMED \/ 16x16","offer_id":51072136380694,"sku":null,"price":200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"FRAMED \/ 24x24","offer_id":51072136413462,"sku":null,"price":450.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"FRAMED \/ 32x32","offer_id":51072136446230,"sku":null,"price":800.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"FRAMED \/ 44x44","offer_id":51072136478998,"sku":null,"price":2200.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"PHOTO \/ 24x24","offer_id":51072136511766,"sku":null,"price":325.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"PHOTO \/ 32x32","offer_id":51072136544534,"sku":null,"price":525.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"PHOTO \/ 44x44","offer_id":51072136577302,"sku":null,"price":1450.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"SPLIT \/ 60x60","offer_id":51072136610070,"sku":null,"price":3950.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"SPLIT \/ 90x90","offer_id":51072136642838,"sku":null,"price":8750.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"SPLIT \/ 120x120","offer_id":51072136675606,"sku":null,"price":14950.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1306\/7343\/files\/Tribune_Wrigley_BurnettVerticalAlignmentcopy.jpg?v=1772499557","url":"https:\/\/www.menaker.com\/products\/tribune-wrigley-burnett-vertical-alignment","provider":"Igor Menaker Fine Art","version":"1.0","type":"link"}