Millenium Park - Chicago

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Chicago's crazy new $400 million park. What do you think of it?

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 19 July 2004 14:24 (twenty-one years ago)

We wandered around it on Sat. night as part of the FAP. I was impressed by pretty much all of it, though we missed the gardens and the bridge (which looks pretty cool in the pictures). The Gehry-designed pavilion is awesome in the original sense of the word. The Cloud Gate (or "The Bean") is pretty incredible too, and once they, you know, finish it (they're going to shut it down soon to finish grinding and polishing it to get rid of the currently visible seams), it will be even better. The main thing I'm not sure about are the two huge glowing monoliths with the faces. I like the standing water in between them which reflects the light back up at night, but it seems gimmicky, the faces are seriously creepy, and it will seem outdated in 10 years (if not 5).

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 19 July 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

But then again, them big lights sure is pretty.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 19 July 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it was closer to (gasp) $500 million. About $200 million was donated by various individuals, corporations, and private funds; the rest I paid for myself.*

I'm not sure what I think about it. It seems like it was set up on a faulty premise. That is, it was designed above all to impress, to be an Event, when really what it has to be (for posterity, or maybe just after this September) is a park. But I didn't notice many places to sit, whether benches or sloping sections of grass.

I can't imagine the "water sculptures" being much more--after the initial, admittedly real, "wow factor" wears off--than a sort of iconic presence without any real relationship to the city and its people.

But the Gehry theater seemed extremely cool, and the Harris theater on Lake St. will likely be pretty useful (and the roof was a nice space for a multimedia event).

On the other hand, that neoclassical colonnade at the northwest corner seems pretty pointless, although a friend suggested to me that it was some kind of homage to a monument that had stood there before (? if so I don't remember it).

*May not be true.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, my brother and I were talking yesterday about the crowded jumble of it all, the lack of sheer open space.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 19 July 2004 15:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I work right near there and I went to the Glass/Ware thing on Saturday (though, obviously, not with all you fappers).

I think it's trying very hard to be "cultural." (My boyfriend was commenting that the grand opening event was probably the closest thing to the Columbia Exposition we'll ever see, which I think is apt and related to a certain self-conscious modernism I've noted in the vibe and surrounding hype.) I was impressed with the Gehry Pavilion (from a distance I didn't know how I felt about it, but the perspective from underneath it is pretty amazing) and I like the way the buildings reflect in the Kapoor Bean/Cloud Gate sculpture. I'm ambivalent at best about the water sculptures--they don't seem to work with the pavilion or the bean. Some friends of mine were commenting that it seems like it would be interesting to make them more dynamic and use them as a showcase for other video art besides the slightly creepy big faces.

I think the pavilion will prove useful, but I'm not sure about the rest of it in terms of functionality. It will be interesting to see how people feel about it in ten years.

― mck (mck), Monday, 19 July 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

i think i'll like it better when there aren't 500 FREAKING MILLION PEOPLE JAMMED IN IT AT ONCE! i wound up there on saturday afternoon (huge mistake) with roughly half of cook county, it seemed pretty cool, the bean is pretty striking in person. i heard someone bitching about the gehry pavillion because it was the only place to gaze at the stars and they put a trellice over it.

all seemed cool to me. better than what was there (i think, it's been so long all i can remember being there are walsh construction vehicles).

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 19 July 2004 16:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked the Bean more than I thought I would. I'd heard all the rhetoric about "reflecting the city itself" and thought it was just a strained metaphor, but actually seeing that skyline reflected on the surface was pretty cool.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Also: mck and otto, you will have to come to a FAP sometime!

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:09 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.thisisblythe.com/images/chicago.jpg

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Some friends of mine were commenting that it seems like it would be interesting to make them more dynamic and use them as a showcase for other video art besides the slightly creepy big faces.

This will happen within five years, I guarantee.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

they're projecting brakhage's the art of seeing with one's own eyes onto them next week

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

I win!

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:24 (twenty-one years ago)

[[sorry NA that was a joke here's a description of the film: "Stan Brakhage's convulsive personal and silent documentary about a Pittsburgh morgue, made in 1971, is one of the most direct confrontations with death ever recorded on film."]]

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I wasn't sure but I kinda guessed that was a joke. But I stand by my baseless prediction.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Also: mck and otto, you will have to come to a FAP sometime!

just let me know and i'll be there. it turns out i had saturday night free anyway, i thought the new year was playing friday and saturday so we bought tickets for the second show. turned out it was thursday and friday so we missed out.

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 19 July 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Yay, we can talk about baseball.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 19 July 2004 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

august 20, 21, 22 FAP 35th and shields, who's up for it?

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 19 July 2004 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought the park turned out well. I mean, who doesn't like a park? The Gehry is like everything else he's done but still cool, as is the jelly bean, and while it's all a little too Epcot-y and cluttered - the water monoliths, Cloud Gate, and Gehry all within one sightline - on a perfect day (Sunday) it all looked quite nice.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Monday, 19 July 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

Has anyone else been back since the triumphant ILX Millenium Park-FAP of '04? We went back the next weekend with a friend who was visiting from out of town, and it was, uh, lame. Everything was cordoned off so that the pavilion was inaccessible, and to get to the Bean you had to walk through this very narrow, very crowded area. We're probably going to go down there sometime in the next few weeks, what with all the visiting parents, but if it's still all divided up, I may try to dissuade them.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

nine years pass...

10 years old.

― jaymc, Saturday, 12 July 2014 16:17 (eleven years ago)

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