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A tour of Chicago's Millennium Park
August 7, 2004
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In August 2004, after years of delays and tens of millions of dollars spent overbudget, Chicago's new Millennium Park finally opened, in the northwestern corner of downtown's Grant Park (Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue is a good place to start), the former site of a ugly system of suburban train tracks. Despite the controversy surrounding both its delays and the choices of architects, Millennium Park opened to an almost universal sense of approval from the citizens of Chicago, a feat rarely heard of here in a city that takes its architecture very seriously indeed. I happened to be down at Millennium Park a few weeks after its opening, to attend a wedding of an old college buddy of mine, so I thought I'd shoot a bunch of pictures of the park myself and explain why the individual parts of it work as well as they do, and why they've caught on with the public in such an immediate and passionate way. I accidentally missed the new three-million-dollar bicycle center, a pet project of our mayor, who wants to turn Chicago into the most bike-friendly city in America; the formal gardens just south of the music pavillion are in the beginning stages of growth, so there's not that much to see there either. These photos cover just about everything else of importance to see in the park.
First, the Frank Gehry pedestrian bridge, linking Millennium Park with the east sections of Grant Park without the need of crossing vehicular traffic. For those who don't know, Gehry is the controversial deconstructivist architect responsible for such projects as Guggenheim Spain in Bilboa and the Disney Symphony Center in Los Angeles; he was hired by Chicago to design both a new outdoor music pavillion and an accompanying foot bridge. His bridge is not really that practical - it curves like a snake back and forth over the vehicular traffic, resulting in a walk that's four times the length of simply walking across the highway directly. It's quite beautiful, though, and forces the pedestrian to really slow down and examine the views of the city the bridge affords.
Interestingly, for such a futuristic bridge, Gehry decided to make the actual walkway out of wood - his attempt to humanize the structure and to give it a traditional feel as you actually walk across it.
I wish I had been able to get better pictures of the bridge; it really is quite spectacular to look at, both from afar and while you're walking on it.
A shot from the top of the bridge, looking down at the outrageously wide metal sidings.
Another shot of the sometimes dramatic views the bridge affords.
And here is a panoramic shot of the actual music pavillion, known by some as the "Baked Potato" because of the music shell's resemblence to one that has exploded in a microwave. In general I am not a fan of Gehry's work, because it just seems too showy for me - the point of most of his past projects has seemed to me to mostly draw attention to itself and how cool and postmodern it is, without a single thought being exercised on how the project might interact with the elements already around it. In this case, though, Gehry's first-ever project in Chicago, I think the obtuse elements of his design actually work in its favor; paired with the stark, vertical skyscrapers of the Loop in the background, the organic pattern of Gehry's music shell I think actually complements the things going on around it, not stick out like a sore thumb (which the Disney Center in LA is particular guilty of - jeez, have you seen that damn thing?). Plus, Gehry came up with this great idea for the speaker system, which was to create a string of lattices covering both the seated and outdoor areas of the pavillion. I really like the psychic impression that this creates; my biggest complaint in the past about seeing outdoor shows at the old Petrillo music pavillion was how disconnected I felt from the activities when I was in the cavernous outdoor seating section. This type of design makes the entire pavillion feel like a unified whole, with the freeloaders in the lawn just as important as those who paid money to sit close to the shell. The entire pavillion, in my opinion, is a wonderful success, and I am highly looking forward to attending my Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert down there soon.
Just west of the music pavillion is a new sculpture called "Cloud Gate," which the Chicago media has unfortunately gotten into the habit of referring to as "The Bean," owing to its resemblence in shape to a kidney bean. It's a shame, because the official title describes the sculpture in such perfect terms - it's a giant ball, basically, covered in steel and polished to perfection, shaped like an arch so that you can actually stand underneath it and get all these weird-ass reflections of the sky and city around you. This has easily become one of the two most popular elements of the new park (eclipsed only by the new fountain, described below), and its embrace by the general public has been truly unexpected.
Self-portrait (with B.), in the reflection of Cloud Gate.
The actual underside of the sculpture. This fall, when they have more time, the city's actually going to remove all the seams you see in this photo, leaving one giant seamless metal ball in its wake. I can't wait!
B. underneath Cloud Gate. The reason the sculpture succeeds so well, in my opinion, is that it offers a different experience for different kinds of audience members: intellectuals appreciate the statement it makes about the urban lifestyle, while the general public is in awe of the technological prowess that made such a sculpture possible, while children enjoy it simply as a big toy. The best publicly-funded art out there does exactly this, providing a different experience for each visitor but leaving no one unsatisfied. It's why I believe Cloud Gate to be such an enormously popular addition to the park, and why the sculpture will eventually become as important to Chicago's landscape as the Picasso sculpture at Dearborn and Washington, or Chagall's "Four Seasons" mosaic at Clark and Monroe.
Surprisingly, Cloud Gate was originally planned to sit in the middle of the formal gardens, on a level below the trees and shrubs growing around it. Fortunately a last-minute snafu forced the city to place it at its current location, a concrete stoop located half a block from the Loop that rises above everything else around it. It makes all the difference in the world, in my opinion - Cloud Gate wouldn't be nearly as fun or popular a sculpture if it didn't so naturally reflect the cityscape surrounding it. A rare example of government bureaucracy actually achieving something better than the original plan.
And finally, the new fountain near Michigan and Madison, just a block or two south of Cloud Gate. Actually there are two fountains, another shaped just like this one and located about 50 feet away, with a slate plaza between the two constantly covered with several inches of water. The fronts of each fountain are actually giant video screens; every five minutes they load up an image of a random Chicago citizen, going through a slow-moving transformation from stoic stare to big smile. (300 face loops have now been recorded; the artist plans on recording 1,000 Chicago citizens' faces for the eventually completed fountain.)
Like I said, the fountain has far and away become the singlemost popular element of the new park. Again, I believe it's because the fountain accomplishes so many different things simultaneously; it is a playtoy for hot children, a place of contemplation for adults, and a statement about the city for those intellectuals who need to have 'statements' about public art in order for it to be valid. The plaza area between the fountains is flat as well, and on the same level as the sidewalk around it, not only signaling that it's okay to walk in the fountain but that you are in fact highly encouraged to do so. There have been some gripes from purists about this fountain (for reasons explained below), but as far as I'm concerned it does exactly what a piece of artwork purchased with public funds should - that is, provide an experience that all taxpayers can enjoy, for the myriad reasons that people would enjoy such a piece, and that generally puts citizens in a better mood after they've visited it than they were in before visiting.
Two citzens of Chicago, enjoying the fountain their taxes paid for, and not really giving much of a damn about the 'postmodern urban ennui' the artist may or may not be commenting on by building it in the first place.
In this photo, you can see exactly what has made this fountain so popular with the general, and why purists have been poo-pooing it - at the end of each five-minute video cycle, the person in frame puckers up their lips and pretends to spit, instead triggering a rush of water from the fountain that lasts about thirty seconds. Is it silly? Well, yes, frankly, it is. Is it a 'waste of the artist's talents,' as some intellectuals have accused? Not at all, in my opinion. It is literally impossible not to be tickled by this fountain when you watch it; between the image of a fifty-foot-high old woman spitting, and all the children gleefully playing in her 'saliva' stream, I ended up laughing out loud at the end of each video cycle, as did nearly every single person around me at the fountain that day. Chicago is a tough enough place on its own, a city that can be very cold and harsh sometimes to its citizens, a place where sometimes it's difficult to find things to laugh about on any given day. If the city wants to spend my tax money on something that makes me smile each and every time I see it, I say more power to them. And I also give a hearty congratulations to the artist as well, for doing something that would get them branded a 'populist' among their fellow snotty artists, but has brought a real sense of wonder and joy to the six million other people who call this city home and will have to deal with his piece on a daily basis from now on. I applaud him or her or looking at their commission in broader terms, and for designing something that has added such a sense of whimsy to our sometimes very stark downtown district.
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