On Sunday, we decided to go to Millenium Park, located in the heart of downtown Chicago, to view the large-scale sculptures by the abstract expressionist sculptor Mark di Suvero. As we got out of our cab on Randolph Street, a small group of people had congregated outside of the Park's Welcome Center -- we were just in time to join a guided tour of the Park.
Our guide, Carol Bryant, pointed out the MacDonald's Cycle Center, providing a 300-space, indoor bicycle parking facility, where people can also rent bikes for the day and register for bike tours. For an annual fee, bikers have access to lockers, showers, bike repair, and other amenities to encourage biking to the Park and to work. This bike station is part of Mayor Daley's goal to make Chicago the most bike friendly city in the U.S. by eventually establishing a 500-mile bikeway network in the city.
In the late 1990s, Mayor Daley, sitting in his dentist's office located in a 1920s building overlooking Grant Park, envisioned a park that would be beautiful, environmentally friendly, devoted to the arts, and a public space for the people of Chicago to relax, and, most of all, to be entertained. The 20 plus-acre Millenium Park, a portion of the larger Grant Park, is considered to be one of the largest roof-top gardens in the world -- constructed on top of a railroad yard and a vast underground parking garage structure. (The Great Lawn, fronting the Pritzker Pavilion, is the size of two football fields and is designed to dry within 15 minutes after a rain storm.)
The Pritzker Pavilion, designed by architect-sculptor Frank Gehry, known for his signature design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, is an outdoor concert venue. Standing more than 100 feet high, the Pavilion displays a brushed stainless steel ribbon-like structure (some say, looking like a "lion's mane or exploding aluminum can") that frames the Douglas-fir stage. An overhead trellis with connecting steel pipes and a state-of-the-art sound system extends over 4,000 seats in the Pavilion and also the Great Lawn, which can accommodate 7,000 people. The Pritzker Pavilion is the home of the Grant Park Music Festival, the only remaining free, outdoor, city-funded classical and modern music series in the U.S. The Music Without Borders series was starting on Sunday night with Enzo Avitabile & Bottari (barrel-beaters of Portico di Caserta, Italy), and we were welcome to watch the rehearsals on stage that afternoon.
Passing through the Lurie Garden, with 240 varieties of perennials in a sculpted environment, we were mesmerized by the beautiful flowers and shrubbery, flowing like waves with each gentle breeze, against the backdrop of the cityscape. In 10 to 15 years, the trees planted on the perimeter of the garden are expected to provide a sound buffer for the Park. On our way to The Crown Fountain, an enormous "water park," we stopped to admire the soaring sculptures of Mark di Suvero. In the South Boeing Gallery are two interactive kinetic steel pieces (there are two more in the North Boeing Gallery). Shang, a 25-foot-tall sculpture, has a suspended steel beam that acts like a swing, attracting multitudes of children. Mark di Suvero has a crane operator's license so that he can create his giant sculptures -- some made of recycled metals and scraps -- which are very accessible, playful, and fit in particularly well with the art and architecture of the Park.
The Crown Fountain is an interactive fountain designed to create a meeting point and space for meditation as water cascades from two 50-foot-tall glass block towers, about 200 feet apart, over images of nature scenes and 1,000 Chicago faces. Each "human gargoyle" (LED-generated faces in slow motion) is up for 5 minutes and spouts water seemingly out of his or her mouth for 30 seconds, and then a cascade-like water fall splashes down from the top of the towers. Although the temperature was in the 70's that day with a cool breeze, it didn't stop the children (and adults) from playing in the water that flowed between the towers, and getting their heads soaked from the spouting water. (The water is recycled and meets the Illinois water pool standards.)
Our last stop was Cloud Gate (or the Bean as Chicagoans like to call it). The Bean is one of the world's largest outdoor sculptures made up of 168 stainless steel plates, one-inch thick, and welded together. When we joined a group of people who were underneath the Bean and looking up, we were surprised to find ourselves in our own kaleidoscopic world with our multiple reflections looking back at us.
Amy A. Rudberg, a freelance writer and researcher, lives and works in Chicago. She recently created ArtStyle, A Voice for Artists in Chicago, focusing on the arts, culture, and lifestyle in Chicago. http://www.chicagoarts-lifestyle.com.
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