<Millennium Park>

Millennium Park was initially conceived with the mission to create a new urban park that would transform the unsightly railway tracks and parking lots in downtown Chicago. Over time, with the clear vision of Mayor Richard M. Daley and with the help of architect Frank Gehry, the project became the most ambitious undertaking in the history of the city of Chicago.
Millennium Park, opened in July 2004, presents an unprecedented combination of architecture, sculpture, and landscape architecture. Millennium Park includes significant works such as Gehry's music pavilion for outdoor summer concerts, the striking installation of Anish Kapoor's sculpture, the interactive, generously designed fountain by Jaume Plensa, and a modern garden installation by Kathryn Gustafson. Two small visitor pavilions were created in the workshop of architect Renzo Piano.
One hundred years after the Columbian Exposition, which showcased modern creations in architecture and urbanism, Chicago's new Millennium Park was ceremoniously opened to the public on July 16, 2004, with a concert by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion under the open sky. The goal of such an undertaking is to open the city of Chicago to the cultural world and its great personalities. Spanning 24 and a half acres, with an investment of 475 million USD, Millennium Park is situated in the very heart of Chicago, from Michigan Avenue towards the shores of Lake Michigan, north to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion and BP Bridge
The music pavilion is named in memory of Chicago businessman Jay Pritzker. Jay Pritzker, along with his wife Cindy, established the Pritzker Architecture Prize, of which Gehry is a laureate from 1989.
Frank O. Gehry, the designer of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed the largest outdoor concert stage of its kind in the United States. The forty-meter high stage structure, surrounded by flowing curves of stainless steel, and a massive steel grid that covers the entire audience area. The seating capacity is 4,000 seats with an additional 7,000 standing places. The stage accommodates a symphony orchestra including a hundred and fifty-member choir. The pavilion has become a permanent venue for the Grant Park Music Festival and other significant cultural events in the city throughout the year. The open stage is connected to the only Henry-designed bridge in the world. The BP Bridge arches over Columbus Drive, a busy thoroughfare in the downtown area, connecting Millennium Park with Daley Bicentennial Square and the Chicago waterfront with a park-planned promenade along Lake Michigan.
The winding pedestrian bridge, designed by Frank Gehry, connects Millennium Park with the eastern part of Grant Park and provides unparalleled views of the city skyline, Grant Park, and Lake Michigan. The bridge, clad in stainless steel panels, features a gently sloping hardwood deck, also providing an acoustic barrier between the audience at the Pavilion and the traffic noise from the busy Columbus Drive.

Cloud Gate
Millennium Park is home to Cloud Gate, one of the largest outdoor sculptures in the world, weighing 110 tons, 22 meters long, 11 meters high, and 16 meters wide, with a reflective surface coated in stainless steel. The elliptical installation is the work of British artist Anish Kapoor.
Cloud Gate has a highly polished surface that reflects the activity and lights of the park and the surrounding city skyline. Kapoor's sculpture sits on the paved SBC Square, west of the pavilion.

Crown Fountain
The interactive fountain, Crown Fountain, features two seventeen-meter glass towers made of transparent blocks with a steel structure inside, with a video installation displaying changing faces of local, randomly selected Chicago residents, as well as natural beauty across the country.
Between the glass blocks is a shiny black stone slab where water cascading and spraying from both structures creates an invisible film, which serves as a playground for all visitors, especially small children, during the hot summer months. The installation is designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa.

Lurie Garden
The traditionally conceived Lurie Garden is a collaborative work by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel.
It is a unique combination of spatial structures, plants, and artificial lighting. The garden includes distinctive spaces, defined by sculpted hedges and pedestrian paths. A five-meter high hedge wall encloses the garden on two sides, and a hardwood walkway follows the direction of water features that run diagonally across the garden, delineating a "light field" with 240 species of perennials and a "dark field" shaded by cherry trees. The Lurie Garden offers a rich and diverse sensory experience throughout all seasons, day and night.

Other Activities in the Park
Millennium Park is designed for year-round use and offers a wide range of activities for all visitors. Wrigley Square, with the Millennium Monument (Peristyle), is an open space for visitors who want to relax while walking. The semicircular row of Doric columns is inspired by the original version of the memorial that adorned the northwest corner of Grant Park from 1917 to 1953. The ice rink is located at McCormick Tribune Square. Chase Promenade runs through the entire park from north to south and provides a place for year-round activities, such as ethnic festivals, markets, exhibitions, or events for families with children. The Boeing Gallery, located on both sides of the park, features two outdoor gallery spaces showcasing regular exhibitions of visual arts during the spring and summer months.
The park includes 300 seats in the Grill restaurant, underground parking for cars and bicycles, as well as easy access to public transport. Two glass pavilions, the Echelon structures, located on the southern side of the park, are the work of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.