The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
THE TRIBUNE BUILDING: VIDEO
The drawings of the Richard Morris Hunt shown at the rear of the case and in the middle frame are earlier versions of the final design as built, which added an additional story below the mansard roof. The framed drawing and others shown on the monitor are notable for including the foundations as part of the full elevation. This type of drawing is characteristic of the newspaper buildings in this show, probably because the basement levels housed the printing presses, engines, and other essential aspects of newspaper production.
The moderns CAD drawing of the Tribune's massive masonry foundations shown on the monitor were created by Ondel Hylton of the Museum's staff, based on a series of drawings by Richard Morris Hunt. Those drawings, now part of the collections of the Library of Congress, were made available to the Museum by Lee Gray. The Museum thanks Professor Gray for his generous assistance in sharing his research, knowledge, and understanding of 19th century commercial architecture.
