ML - Michigan Avenue

2014 - Issue 4 - Summer

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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7 A PARTY IN THE PARK MillenniuM Park's greatest triuMPh May be its interactivity. The source of Millennium Park's magnetic appeal can be hard to pinpoint. Is it the outdoor concerts with amazing surround sound? Is it seeing fun-house ref lections in the Bean or water gushing down a huge tower? In fact, it's all of that and more— the essence of the park is a sense of playful culture, a t rait sha red by Cloud Gate, t he Crow n Fount a in, a nd t he Jay Pritzker Pavilion. "If you think about the three pieces, they kind of work together," says Gehry. "It's interesting that none of us talked to each other while we were designing." Gehry calls the ensemble a "party in the park," starting with the band shell. "When you put music in," he explains, "it takes it to the next level. Then to have Anish's sculpture next to it, which ref lects the city and the people.... Then there's Plensa with these gargoyles, which is a brilliant, brilliant idea—so per- sonally engag ing you can't stop looking at it. A nd then the fountain became a party, with the kids playing in the fountain and in the water. Everything is complementary, and that rarely happens. I don't k now a ny ot her place t hat contempora r y where those three things come together like that." 8 AN URBAN OASIS the lurie garden subtly references chicago's historic Past. Tucked away in the park's southeast corner, the Lurie Garden is a five-acre urban oasis where park-raised bees busily pollinate clusters of purple and magenta f lowers and prairie plants—more than 240 perennial species in all. It's also become a favorite destination for Chicagoans seeking respite from the city. As on the wooden docks of Lake Michigan, on a quiet day visitors can hear t he water lapping beneat h t he boardwalk t hat lines t he garden. Conceptually, the 15 -foot hedge around the garden is a nod to Chicago's moniker "The City of Big Shoulders," says Kathryn Gustafson, part of the landscape architecture team of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, which worked on the garden with plant specialist Piet Oudolf and lighting designer Robert Israel. In researching Chicago's his- tory, she found abundant references to those shoulders. "Mink trappers would be in canoes all day rowing, and when they got out of their canoes they had spindly little legs and big shoulders," Gustafson says with a laugh. "There's also the big shoulders of the steel industry and the fact that everything moves through Chicago…. So we wanted the hedge to feel like shoulders. Since Frank Gehry's fantastic bandstand looks like an Indian headdress, we figured we'd give it a pair of shoulders to sit on." A BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE building on MillenniuM Park's success, grant Park's evolution continues with Maggie daley Park. For years, Chicagoans have joked about the snaky silver BP Bridge in Millennium Park being a "bridge to nowhere." It pre- viously connected to R ichard J. Daley Bicentennial Plaza, which is now being transformed into Maggie Daley Park. "I personally consider Millennium Park one of the best, if not the best, public spaces built in the Western world in the last 50 years—it's an incredible attraction," says Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. "The reason I'm building out Maggie Daley Park is to build on that strength." Like Millennium Park, its new sister park is being paid for with public and private funds; it's expected to cost "around $60 million," says Eve Rodriguez, the mayor's assistant press secre- tary. A soft opening is planned for this fall, with the official opening slated for spring or summer 2015, after plantings take place. Says Emanuel, "I know a lot of other mayors are jealous of what we do here in the sense of public-private partnership." With a children's play area, rock-climbing walls, and a skat- ing ribbon, "it's going to be a more physically active area that will complement Millennium Park," adds Matt Nielson, dep- ut y commissioner for cultura l pla nning a nd operat ions in Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. 9 Mayor Richard M. Daley had grown tired of looking out his dentist's office window at 900 parked cars. He said, "Let's cover it with a park." 128  michiganavemag.com

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