Chicago

I’ve just been to Chicago attending a meeting with the IALD.

It’s cold in Chicago.  And I mean really cold.  Literally freezing.  As soon as I land I start regretting not bringing gloves.

The first 24 hours are spent in the hotel with the IALD staff, executive director, lawyer and fellow committee members.  Being new to the committee I have a lot to learn, but I soon get the hang of the procedural and bureaucratic imperatives that my committee is bound by.

Evening comes and we’re out to dinner, just a few blocks away.  Wow, it’s cold.  Lamenting the gloves omission more than ever.  Round a corner and then there it is in front of my very eyes: Millennium Park.  Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture, affectionately known as ‘the bean’ by locals.  And the Crown Fountain – one of Electrolight’s favourite reference images.  Both really cool – always so pleasing when something in real life is as good as the images.

Thankfully we reach the restaurant where I ordered the elk (as you do).  Surprisingly, it didn’t taste like chicken (more like liver, actually, which was unfortunate),

After completing our committee work the next we were free.  I attended the architectural walking tour which was fascinating.  Despite the onset of frostbite in my fingers (I swear they were turning black at the tips), we were guided around the best post-war buildings, the stand-out for me being the Mies federal plaza comprising two governmental high-rise buildings and a single-storey post office.

Mies apparently said that god’s in the detail and this was evident looking at the plaza.  The perfect composition of buildings, the volumes (the post office would fit perfectly in the lobby of the taller buildings), the arrangement of the windows, their frames lining up with floor tiles, other columns, seating, details on adjacent structures.  Nothing there that’s not needed, everything arranged perfectly.  Simplicity personified and beautiful beyond words.

Back to ‘the bean’ for a daytime look and now there’s a crowd of people around it.  It’s so shiny, literally like a mirror.  Children getting really excited being near it, everyone interacting with it like you wouldn’t believe.

It sits in Millennium Park which is such a good space.  Aside from the bean and Crown Fountain there’s also a very cool signature Frank Gehry building (an outdoor performance stage) just for good measure.  Oh, and an ice rink as well.  And  bridge to Renzo Piano’s Chicago Museum of Modern Art.

I reckon you can always tell a successful park by the clientele.  It was really busy but seemingly not with just tourists but plenty of locals who just seem to love it.  And what’s not to love?

I have been lucky enough to work alongside BLL and TCL on the early design work for Melbourne’s Harbour Esplanade project.  It’s easy to make comparisons to Millennium Park and to see first hand what’s possible when a government makes a serious investment in art, architecture and design.

Millennium Park - Crown Fountain

All about Mies

By far the coolest thing I've ever seen