“Resolved: the Wrigley Building is a beautiful, beloved jewel of Chicago, though not great architecture. Discuss.
“‘Beautiful’ is a value judgment, one I endorse fully. Glazed terra cotta in six shades of white, shifting toward creamy yellow as it nears the top. Festooned with dragons, griffins, cherubs, rams. That four-faced clock, 20 feet tall.
“‘It was made to be liked,’ said Robert Sharoff, whose new coffee table book, ‘The Wrigley Building: The Making of an Icon,’ (Rizzoli Electa) with photographs by William Zbaren and commentaries by Tim Samuelson, shines a spotlight on a structure that’s been well-illuminated for over a century.
“‘The more I shot it, the more joyous it became,’ said Zbaren. ‘It’s so playful.’
“The Wrigley Building is just fun. Perched at the confluence of Michigan Avenue and the north bank of the Chicago River, the historic heart of Chicago — the outlines of Fort Dearborn are in brass across the street — the tower has always been a font of fascination, to me anyway,
“Starting with it being in reality two buildings, built at different times, with different addresses, 400 and 410 N. Michigan, connected at the 14th floor by that metal skybridge, a rococo detail that seems pulled from those dreamlike early 1900s fantasies of the urban future, with plump zeppelins and streamlined elevated trains and mustachioed gentlemen in bowler hats pedaling through the air on penny-farthing bicycles with wings.
“‘The Wrigley Building’ bristles with glorious facts that even I didn’t know, starting with the clock initially being hand-wound by someone turning an enormous crank, winching up weights that once drove the mechanism.
“‘The Wrigley Building: The Making of an Icon’ deserves a place of pride on your coffee table, flaws and all. Zbaren’s photos are gorgeous; Mansueto got his money’s worth.
“Who reads coffee table books anyway? Honestly, the most significant and wonderful aspect of the Wrigley Building is eloquently laid out in the photo on page 177, reproduced above, and requiring little elaboration. They built the tallest building in Chicago, at the time, north of the Chicago River when all around was a smoky industrial nowhere of low factories and warehouses. The Wrigley Building is a bold expression of faith in the future of Chicago, a throw of the dice that paid off. That alone is reason to love it.” (Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times, 5/6/25)
“The Wrigley Building: The Making of an Icon
Author Robert Sharoff, Commentaries by Tim Samuelson, Introduction by John Vinci, Photographs by William Zbaren
“An in-depth look at America’s historic skyscraper and Chicago’s most iconic building.
“This is the captivating story of the spectacular architecture of the century-old Wrigley Building—its design, construction, and enduring significance as one of Chicago’s most emblematic buildings. Through meticulous research and spectacular photography, the book unearths a century’s worth of architectural, social, and business history, shedding light on many aspects of the Wrigley Building for the first time.
“The Wrigley represents the high-water mark of Beaux Arts Classicism in the city, a gleaming white palazzo at the head of Chicago’s grandest boulevard, Michigan Avenue. With lavish terra-cotta ornamentation, it was Chicago’s tallest building when it opened in 1921. The book focuses on the intertwined stories of William Wrigley Jr., the larger-than-life founder of the chewing gum empire, and Charles Gerhard Beersman, the relatively unknown architect who, mentored by architect Julia Morgan, brought the building to life.
“With stunning new photography alongside archival images, renderings, and original blueprints and drawings, this volume is a must-have for any architecture enthusiast. It unveils a fresh perspective on this architectural marvel as well as a wealth of fascinating social history illuminating the building’s significance as more than just a structural landmark but as a nexus of Chicago’s cultural, social, and business evolution. The book incorporates multiple paper stocks and two gatefolds. (Rizzoli Electra)