The Wrigley Building is a

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

located at 400–410 North Michigan Avenue on Chicago's Near North Side. It is located on the

Magnificent Mile The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is an upscale section of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, running from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side. The district is located within downtown, and one block ...

directly across Michigan Avenue from the

Tribune Tower The Tribune Tower is a , 36-floor neo-Gothic skyscraper located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Built between 1923 and 1925, the international design competition for the tower became a historic event in 20th-cen ...

. Its two towers in an elaborate style were built between 1920 and 1924 to house the corporate headquarters of the

Wrigley Company The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, known as the Wrigley Company, is an American multinational chewing gum (Wrigley's gum) company, based in the Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois. Wrigley's is wholly owned by Mars, In ...

. Its bright white facade is covered in

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

History

When ground was broken for the Wrigley Building in 1920, there were no major office buildings north of the

Chicago River The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for ...

. The Michigan Avenue Bridge, which spans the river just south of the building, was still under construction. The land was selected by

chewing gum Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its te ...

magnate

William Wrigley Jr. William Mills Wrigley Jr. (September 30, 1861 – January 26, 1932) was an American chewing gum industrialist. He was founder of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company in 1891. Biography William Mills Wrigley Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Penns ...

for the headquarters of his company. The building was designed by the architectural firm of

Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnh ...

using the shape of the

Giralda The Giralda ( es, La Giralda ) is the bell tower of Seville Cathedral in Seville, Spain. It was built as the minaret for the Great Mosque of Seville in al-Andalus, Moorish Spain, during the reign of the Almohad dynasty, with a Renaissance-style ...

tower of

Seville's Cathedral The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See ( es, Catedral de Santa María de la Sede), better known as Seville Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville, Andalusia, Spain. It was registered in 1987 by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along ...

combined with French Renaissance details. The south tower was completed in September 1921 and the north tower in May 1924. Walkways between the towers were added at the ground level and the third floor. In 1931, another walkway was added at the fourteenth floor to connect to offices of a bank in accordance with a Chicago statute concerning bank branch offices. The two towers, not including the levels below Michigan Avenue, have a combined area of . The two towers are of differing heights, with the south tower rising to 30 stories and the north tower to 21 stories. On the south tower is a

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...

with faces pointing in all directions. Each face is in diameter. The building is clad in glazed terra-cotta, which provides its gleaming white façade. On occasion, the entire building is hand washed to preserve the terra cotta. At night, the building is brightly lit with floodlights. The Wrigley Building was Chicago's first

air-conditioned Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

office building. If one walks through the center doors, one will enter a secluded park area overlooking the

. In the 1957 science fiction film '' Beginning of the End'', giant grasshoppers attack downtown Chicago, and in one scene are shown climbing up the side of the Wrigley Building. The Wrigley Building was sold in 2011 to a group of investors that includes Zeller Realty Group and

Groupon Groupon is an American global e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in 13 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched there in November 2008, launching soon af ...

co-founders

Eric Lefkofsky Eric Paul Lefkofsky (born September 2, 1969) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder of Tempus, and the co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics (ECHO), InnerWorkings (INWK), and Mediaocean. He is an early investor in U ...

and

Brad Keywell Brad Keywell (born October 1969) is an American entrepreneur from Michigan. He is the founder and executive chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial AI software provider. He is an early investor of Tempus Labs, co-founder of Groupon, Echo ...

. The new owners made the building more attractive to businesses by adding a

Walgreens Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...

, a coffee shop, a fitness center and a nursing room for mothers. In 2017,

Lego Architecture Lego Architecture is a Lego theme, which aims to “celebrate the past, present and future of architecture through the Lego Brick”. The brand includes a series of Lego sets designed by ‘Architectural Artist’ Adam Reed Tucker, and each conta ...

did a skyline of Chicago and the Wrigley Building was one of buildings featured.

Tenants

Addresses at 400 North Michigan Avenue: *The Consulate-General of Austria resides in Suite 707. *The Consulate-General of the United Kingdom resided on the 12th and 13th floors of the Wrigley Building from 1996 to August 2011, when the Consulate-General relocated to another building on North Michigan Avenue.British Consulate-General, Chicago
''UKinUSA''. Accessed 30 August 2011. *

Select Model Management Established in London in 1977, by founders Tandy Anderson and sisters Clare and Chrissie Castagnetti, Select Model Management is a global network of model and talent agencies. Company In their early days, Select was one of the first modelling ag ...

, located in Suite 700. Addresses at 410 North Michigan Avenue: *Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, housed in Suite 900. *EZCall, a division of

Kronos Incorporated Kronos Incorporated was an American multinational workforce management and human capital management cloud provider headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, which employed more than 6,000 people worldwide. In February 2020, the compa ...

, housed in Suite 660. *Capax Global US Headquarters, housed in Suite 650. *

Perkins and Will Perkins&Will is a global design practice founded in 1935. Since 1986, the group has been a subsidiary of Lebanon-based Dar Al-Handasah (Arabic: دار الهندسة). Phil Harrison has been the firm's CEO since 2006. History The firm was establ ...

Gallery

File:Chicago September 2016-35.jpg, The Wrigley Building's

-inspired tower File:Chicago (34886261555).jpg, A view along Michigan Ave., the Wrigley Building is visible on the right File:Río Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Estados Unidos, 2012-10-20, DD 02.jpg, The structure from across the

File:The Wrigley Building (47827964482).jpg, An upwards facing view of the building File:Chicago September 2016-14 (cropped).jpg, A angle of the building showing the annex in more detail.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wrigley Building Skyscraper office buildings in Chicago Central Chicago Wrigley Company Buildings and structures completed in 1924 Clock towers in Illinois Terracotta Renaissance Revival architecture in Illinois Spanish Revival architecture in Illinois 1924 establishments in Illinois

History

Tenants

Gallery

See also

References

External links