December 3, 1922 – John Mead Howells,
the winner of the $100,000 competition for the Chicago Tribune’s new building
on Michigan Avenue, is honored at a dinner at which he gives the keynote
address. Expressing his appreciation for
the commission, Howells says, “When an architect has thought and studied and
practiced a special subject for eighteen years, he feels that nothing so fine
can come to him as an opportunity to give that subject its best
expression.” That subject, for Howells
and his collaborator, Raymond Hood, has been the tall office building, a
frustrating subject in most cases, the architect says, because of the location
in a city such buildings must usually occupy.
“Unfortunately, almost all our efforts at design must be lost,” Howells
says, “for the reason that most office buildings have a joint property line on
each side, over which the building cannot project and this leaves the front an
isolated strip of design with no relation to the other sides of the
building. It is like a decorated window
shade pulled down from a roll twenty stories above the street.” The only time a perfect skyscraper can be
built, Howells says, is when an architect is given a site that allows all four
sides of the building owned by the same owner.
“How many such opportunities are there in the world,” he asks. “You can count them on your fingers.” The new building in Chicago presents such an
opportunity. Howell goes on to talk
about the plan for the Tribune building.
The intent is not to design a building that “looked Gothic … but it is
meant to be a design expressing to the limit our American steel cage
construction, and nothing else … I believe that the type of design chosen by The Tribune expresses not only the
American office building but the actual steel cage, with its vertical steel
columns from top to bottom and its interpolated steel beams. When you have done this you have produced
something Gothic in line, because the Gothic architecture was also one of
structural expression.” Closing his
remarks, Howells says, “In the present design Mr. Hood and I have tried to set
aside any itching for the original for fear of the fantastic, and we have
striven only for a straight solution of that most worth while in American
problems – the American skyscraper.”
December 3, 1948 – Pizzeria Uno opens for business. According to Eater Chicago Ike Sewell worked for Fleischmann’s Distilling Corporation and his future partner, Ric Ricardo, was the owner of Riccardo’s Restaurant and Gallery at 437 North Rush Street. The original plan was to open a Mexican Restaurant until Riccardo, an Italian by birth, tasted Mexican food for the first time. That pointed the duo in the direction of pizza, but not just the usual thin crust of tomato sauce, cheese and toppings, but a pizza that was worthy of the city with the big shoulders. The restaurant was originally called The Pizzeria and then Pizzeria Riccardo. It became Pizzeria Uno when Sewell and Riccardo opened Pizzeria Due a block away in 1955. Today there are over 130 Uno Pizzeria and Grill restaurants in 21states, Washington, D. C., South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Honduras, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
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