Standing at just the right spot on Michigan Avenue, just south of the Chicago River, looking north to the Magnificent Mile, it is possible to see an elaborate game of architectural dress-up and make-believe.
The Wrigley Building, constructed in the early 1920s to house the headquarters of the Wrigley chewing gum company, was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White in a French Renaissance style. But the north tower is directly inspired by Seville Cathedral - the famous tower La Griralda, formerly the minaret of the Almohad mosque, rebuilt in later centuries by the Christian reconquerers.
Across the street, the Chicago Tribune Tower stands. Howells & Hood won the contest for its design, invoking the Butter Tower of Rouen Cathedral, which earned its name by being funded by indulgences that allowed donors to consume dairy products during Lent.
These stately architectural invocations of the Spain of the Reconquest and of Gothic France doubtlessly inspired some cheeky Shriners to build an even taller building next to them - one adorned with Moorish, Egyptian and Assyrian decoration. The Medinah Athletic Club went bankrupt in 1933 and sold the building, which is now the Intercontinental Hôtel. Its golden dome was intended as a docking port for dirigibles in less wary times before the Hindenburg disaster.
Nativist newspapermen and chewing gum magnates pretend to be mediaeval Frenchmen and Spaniards; the Masons gleefully play the rôle of the Mohammedans. Just across the river, on one of the dockhouses of the Michigan Avenue Bridge is a relief commemorating the rebuilding of the City following the Great Fire of 1871; the sculptor was James Fraser, best known for designing the Buffalo Nickel.
On it, an heroic female figure tramples a dragon representing the fire; another flies through the air, blowing a trumpet and summoning laborers to reconstruction. The allusions are obvious; these muscular blonde Beaux Arts goddesses are masquerating as Ss. Michael and Gabriel.