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Chicago Temple Building
General information
Location	Chicago, Illinois USA
Status	Complete
Constructed	1923-1924
Technical details
Floor count	23
Companies involved
Architect(s)	Holabird & Roche

The Chicago Temple Building is a 173 meter (568 foot) tall skyscraper church located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is home to the congregation of the First United Methodist Church of Chicago. It was completed in 1924 and has 23 floors dedicated to religious and office use. It is the tallest church building in the World, though not the tallest church in the world (see Ulm Cathedral). It was designed by Holabird & Roche.

It was the tallest building in Chicago from 1924 until 1930, when it was surpassed by the Chicago Board of Trade Building. This claim counts its steeple to maintain superiority over the, 1927 build, 35 East Wacker Building.^[1][2]

The building consists of masonry and steel and is designed in the neo-gothic architectural style.

There are three sanctuaries in the building:

• Sanctuary 1 is 2 stories tall on the ground floor with seating available for 1,200 people.
• Sanctuary 2 is also known as the "Dixon Chapel" and is on the 2nd floor.
• Sanctuary 3 also known as the "Sky Chapel" is the smallest sanctuary and is situated below the steeple with seating for 30 people.

The Sky Chapel was installed in 1952 as a gift from Myrtle Walgreen in memory of her husband who founded the chain of drugstores under their surname.

There is one residential area which is used by the Methodist church's senior pastor as a parsonage. On the 6th floor of the building was the office of Clarence Darrow, the famous trial attorney.

Adjacent to the Chicago Temple Building, in Brunswick Plaza, is a large, mixed media sculpture known as Miró's Chicago.

A fictionalized version of the building is one of the settings in Charles Merrill Smith's Father Randollph detective series, where the title character is the senior pastor resident in the skyscraper's parsonage.

Notes

External links

• Emporis: Chicago Temple Building
• SkyscraperPage
• First United Methodist Church

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