The city of Chicago
has done an impressive job with the re-development of Millennium Park
over the last decade and I had the good fortune to see it while visiting last summer. The Crown Fountain,
located on one edge of the park, is the center of activity on a hot day and is
fun to see from a lot of different angles.
The fountains are enormous
glass brick towers with images projected on their surfaces. The faces change from one to the next at a
slow, steady pace while water runs down the outside of the towers, splashing as
it runs over the bricks. Every few
minutes there is a surge of water that comes out of the “mouth”. All of this while people are walking around,
splashing, looking at these columns and faces that are several times larger in
scale. It’s fantastic- equally as much
fun to stand back and watch with the city in the background.
One of the details that
caught my eye and that I particularly liked was the glass brick that was used for the towers. They were large, solid, glass bricks, a detail that seemed to have been
borrowed from a mid-century factory near by.
The bricks were set in rows as a standard brick but when put together in mass, were some how lighter. It was a simple detail but I thought particularly fitting being Chicago, the “City of Industry”. (The Crown Fountain )
Millennium Park map