Richard Yoshijiro Mine
American, born Japan, 1894­1981
Design entry for the Chicago Tribune Tower 
competition, Michigan Avenue elevation
1922
Ink and wash on paper
140.3 x 59.7 cm
Gift of Richard Yoshijiro Mine, 1988.408.5

Mine, who came from Japan to study architecture in Illinois, created this drawing for the 1922 competition to design a new office building for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Architects from as far away as Finland, Germany, and Japan, as well as from all over the United States, entered the competition. Some of the entries were quite modern, but the winning design, like Mine’s own entry, recalled the soaring vertical style of Gothic cathedrals. The notion that this style was appropriate for new American skyscrapers was made popular by the Woolworth building in New York City (1914), the so-called “Cathedral of Commerce.”