Examine Chicago's Tribune Tower and Robert R. McCormick's decision to embed in its walls fragments from notable buildings and sites

KATHERINE SOLOMONSON: In many ways, the Tribune Tower's a very personal building. It's a monument to the values of Robert R McCormick, who is editor of the Tribune. It's a monument to his own personal experiences during World War I. It's a monument to his view that the United States had emerged from the war in a new position of triumph and leadership.

So if you pass by Tribune Tower. It's not unusual to find little clusters of people looking really closely at the stones that have been attached to the base of the building. According to McCormick's memoirs, McCormick picked up the first stone that interested him on a battlefield during World War I. So there were certainly stones taken from sites associated with battles.

As time went on, he began to commission his foreign correspondents to collect them for him. The way they described it is they would get the stones by honorable means only, presumably meaning that they got permission. So in one case a Tribune correspondent was going to Rouen. And they published the headline warning people that somebody from the Tribune was coming to town, because I think they were imagining he'd be out there with a little pick and hammer trying to take something from their building.

I find it remarkable to think of some of these chunks of buildings, somebody saying, sure, you can take it. Put it in your skyscraper. I mean basically, what we have this incredible act of appropriation. We have this foundation that's literally made up of what they regarded as the great monuments of the world holding up a tower that was meant to surpass all of them.