The Chicago Tribune Tower Competition: Skyscraper Design and Cultural Change in the 1920s - Couverture souple

Solomonson, Katherine

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0226768007 ISBN 13 : 9780226768007

Editeur : University of Chicago Press, 2003

Synopsis

In 1922, the Chicago Tribune sponsored an international competition to design its new corporate headquarters. Both a serious design contest and a brilliant publicity stunt, the competition received worldwide attention for the hundreds of submissions―from the sublime to the ridiculous―it garnered.

In this lavishly illustrated book, Katherine Solomonson tells the fascinating story of the competition, the diverse architectural designs it attracted, and its lasting impact. She shows how the Tribune used the competition to position itself as a civic institution whose new headquarters would serve as a defining public monument for Chicago. For architects, planners, and others, the competition sparked influential debates over the design and social functions of skyscrapers. It also played a crucial role in the development of advertising, consumer culture, and a new national identity in the turbulent years after World War I.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The Chicago Tribune Tower competition was one of the largest, most important and most controversial design contests of the 1920s. The international competition generated 263 entries for the design of the new Tribune office building, and they represented a broad constellation of approaches to the skyscraper at a time of transition. In the decades following the competition, the design entries have often been evaluated in terms of the rise and demise of particular conceptions of modernism. This study examines the various contexts in which the Chicago Tribune Tower design competition took place and how they shaped the event. Analyzing how the competition contributed to changing concepts of the skyscraper, it also demonstrates how it engaged with the production of consumer culture, with conflicts of national identity and cultural unity, and with a newspaper's efforts to produce a civic and corporate icon during the turbulent years following World War I.

Revue de presse

'In Solomonson's careful and many-sided account, Tribune Tower becomes a pole around which the whole pattern of a society turns. Building up from details, she draws together a fascinating social and material history ... The book represents a landmark effort to connect architectural discourse to the larger culture of which it is a part ... this fine social history offers an exemplary model for anyone seeking to understand what buildings mean to people.' Chicago Tribune

'Solomonson ... Understands the issues and writes engagingly not oly about the competition itself, but about the architectural and commercial cultures - both European and American - that formed its backdrop.' The Times Literary Supplement

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Chicago Press
• Date d'édition: 2003
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0226768007
• ISBN 13: 9780226768007
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 384
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible