Chicago Tribune Tower

The focus of the black and white photograph is a tall stone cathedral tower set against a clear sky. The tower is roughly square, with four faces. It is covered in sculpture, tracery, and pointed arches. The uppermost portion of the tower is small and octagonal and supported by flying buttresses. In the foreground are low, timber-frame houses and shops built against the wall of the cathedral.

Butter Tower, Rouen Cathedral, early 16th century
from Epiphanius Wilson, Cathedrals of France
(New York: Churchman Company, 1900)

The top of the Tribune Tower is clearly based on gothic precedent—the Butter Tower at Rouen Cathedral, to be exact—but the design is not derivative. Instead, the result is a free interpretation of gothic detail with other historic and modern forms combined in a unified, strongly vertical skyscraper.