Exuberant Millennium Park .. Chicago

Chicago – Growing Greener and More Vibrant With Each Passing Year

Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion (Alice Joyce photo)

Gehry Glam! – The Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park: Gehry’s exuberant architecture seems to have taken the world by storm. I’ll personally vouch for the architect’s design of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The building proved to have superb acoustics when I heard a string quartet play in the Hall. Even before attending the concert, I’d been won over by Gehry’s exuberant style, impressed by the Concert Hall’s open-air gardens, which are open to the public.

But here the focus is on CHICAGO! In September last year I took in a performance at the Park’s Pritzker Pavilion. Each year during the World Music Festival, venues around the city offer free performances. In the photo above, Tambours San Frontieres is performing one afternoon: A Congolese group now based in Chicago.

Crown Fountain - Chicago (ALICE JOYCE Photo) Millennium Park

Millennium Park’s Crown Fountain is a crowd pleaser! Upright 50-foot towers deliver a welcoming splash and flow!

Jaume Plensa, a Barcelona artist, designed the multi-media water feature.

Chicago - Millennium Park Plantings (Alice Joyce photo)

Along the Magnificent Mile – Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, and throughout the landscape of Millennium Park, lush planting beds enliven the scene with the bold forms of grasses, tropical specimens, and brilliant annuals rich with color and texture.

Crown Fountain by Jaume Plensa (Alice Joyce photo)

A shallow pool spans the space between the glass-block towers, their colorful video projections featuring a panoply of faces. 1,000 Chicagoans are featured… their changing expressions create a riveting display.

Millennium Park – Art & Architecture

May 6th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Chicago, Green Destinations | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)

Gardens, Art and Architecture - Chicago

The city of Chicago’s lakefront gardens, art and architecture draw locals and tourists, alike, to a year-round destination of cultural and sensual pleasures. May, 2009 heralded the opening of the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, designed by architect, Renzo Piano.

Millennium Park Walkway to AIC Wing & Terzo Piano Restaurant (Alice Joyce photo)

Although completed behind schedule, Chicago’s Millennium Park opened in 2004 to demonstrate a crowning achievement for the City, and an international success for Mayor Daley, the man responsible for spearheading the effort. One of the delights of Millennium Park is the 2.5-acre Lurie Garden: Kathryn Gustafson/Piet Ouldolf/Robert Israel design. In 2009 a stunning walkway had recently opened to the public, leading from the Lurie Garden directly to the elegant Terzo Piano Restaurant and another entryway to the Art Institute’s new upper level.

Chicago's Lurie Garden Agastache (Alice Joyce photo)

Art Institute of Chicago New Wing, Sculpture Terrace (Alice Joyce photo)

In the photo, above left, The Sculpture Terrace provides stunning views, looking out over the Lurie Garden, and beyond to the Jay Pritzker Pavilion designed by architect Frank Gehry.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion - Frank Gehry Design (Alice Joyce photo)

Through the sculpture terrace’s glass wall atop the Renzo Piano-designed Modern Wing, the view of the Lurie Garden takes in the rill, which culminates in a sedate waterfall.

View of Lurie Garden from AIC terrace (Alice Joyce photo)

Lurie Garden Rill (Alice Joyce photo)

Margo and Thomas Pritzker Garden: One approaches the Pritzker Garden from the museum’s Griffin Court, in the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. Facing Columbus Drive, the space is designed with an elegant simplicity, given a sense of shelter by the flying carpet overhead (photo below – upper left), so named by architect Renzo Piano.

Pritzker Garden with Ellsorth Kelly's 'White Curve' (Alice Joyce photo)

Chartreuse chairs are placed about the crushed stone terrace, the bright enameled seating producing an ambiance that conjures up images of European gardens. Naturalistic plantings of grasses soften the sleek setting, punctuated by the spare placement of trees with peeling bark. White Curve:  A work by Ellsworth Kelly glimmers with the changing light on the museum wall. The sculpture’s reflective surface is animated by reflections of the garden’s columns & trees. Specially commissioned in collaboration with the building’s architect, Renzo Piano, the work is the largest to-date in Kelly’s oeuvre.
May 4th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , | Category: Chicago, Foodie Havens, Landscape Architecture | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)

Resources & Links