On the top of the Hilton Hotel is a Neoclassical colonnade, adorned with Greco-Roman style Ionic columns. In the ancient Greek and Roman times, the Ionic style column was designed on a base of stacked disks, with a plain shaft, and a defining pair of volutes (scroll-shaped ornaments) decorating the top. The Ionic column design dates back to the 6th century where the Ionian Greeks (located in villages near the Eastern Greece border) designed the decorative column support for structures, and the column became assimilated in the Roman culture as well. The distinctive volutes on the columns are believed to be decorative scrolls that symbolized the Greek and Roman abilities to communicate far distances through the power of writing. The volutes may also symbolize ram’s horns, which have a classical connection to the ancient Egyptians near the Nile Delta and the island of Crete in Greece. The ram’s horns were often adorned by Egyptian pharaohs as a symbol of activity, royal power, and creative energy. For the Greeks, the ram’s horns represented power, strength, determination, energy, protection, and fearlessness, and my decorating the columns on the surroundings of buildings, evil will be kept out.

At the Hilton Hotel the Ionic Neoclassical colonnade serves as a rooftop walkway for guests to take in the splendid views of Chicago, Lake Michigan, and other parks nearby, all while walking through a Neoclassical and Greco-Roman structure.

Image of the Neoclassical colonnade from the sidewalk by the hotel entrance (photo by Alec Abramson)