From my twenty-second floor hotel room window, I have a great view of some of Chicago’s most interesting downtown buildings. I call the architectural style here Weird Chicago Gothic. Tall 100 year-old stone structures wear spires, buttresses, ornate carvings and even a clock tower or two. The look reminds me of a seminary or a cathedral. I wonder what god these exuberant buildings were built to praise: American hard work, commerce and success maybe? New York City still feels a little European to me, a tad restrained and proud of its lineage, but Chicago proclaims with unselfconscious brashness, “Behold my greatness, my wealth! Know my vast success.” I enjoy marveling at this place but I could never live here. (As if the architecture where we live now is humble and not self-consciously grandiose too?)
Why, this eccesiastic-looking architecture on commercial buildings?
The towering, buttressed spire of the Chicago Tribune Building just outside my window
