THE CHICAGO TEMPLE - FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
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A 173 m high church in Chicago combining the style of a French Gothic cathedral and a modern skyscraper.
If the height of a church is proportional to the faith of its parishioners, then God must feel fulfilled in Illinois. With its steeple rising to 173 m, the Chicago Temple is the tallest church in the world and was, for a time, the tallest building in Chicago. Today, it looks like a small skyscraper in the surrounding forest of buildings, but its atypical architecture sets it apart from its neighbors.
It was built in 1924 by the firm Holabird & Roche, combining the style of a French Gothic cathedral with that of a modern skyscraper. Another original feature is that only the first five floors and the upper sections are used for church services, the rest being occupied by private lawyers' offices. Clarence Darrow, the famous Chicago lawyer who defended workers during the massive strikes in the Pullman district in 1894, had his law office on the sixth floor. The lower parts can be visited without a guided tour. The light behind the stained glass windows - beautiful and clear even on bad weather days - is artificial. Indeed, it was not possible to pierce the walls with openings to the outside, as they would no longer have been able to support the structure of a skyscraper. This aspect can be seen throughout the structure of the church, which at first glance resembles all religious buildings; the wooden beams are an imitation, and are in fact made of wood-covered metal.
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