Chicago remarkable new Millennium park is greater than just another city park. It’s celebration of landscape design, structure, and sculpture that has already won international fame… Since it was opened in 2004 an incredible number of visitors have enjoyed the incredible structure and artwork, seen the magnificent free music concerts and remarkable performances at Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and relaxed in the stunningly stunning gardens, offering Anish Kapoor monumental Cloud Gate statue, and Jaume Plensa interactive Crown Fountain. The land that is now occupied by Millennium Park was initially of the Illinois Central Railroad Watseka health branch line. For the majority of the 20th century, this land was an unsightly hodgepodge of railroad tracks, parking lots, and vacant lots.
In 1997, Chicago Mayor Richard.M.Daley introduced a plan for a sixteen-acre park and outdoor musical event venue, following Grant Park standard Beaux Arts style. Soon the project involved internationally renowned advisors, landscape manufacturers, architects, and artists. The decoration of Millennium Park is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by award-winning architect Frank Gehry, with its 4,000 seat audience and Great Lawn that may accommodate 7,000 people. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion is 120 legs tall, billowing, brushed stainless steel ribbon headdress which frames the stage. The steel ribbons connect to crisscrossing steel trellises overhead, which support the Pavilion sound system.
Pavilion is the home of Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus, and several other free concerts and events held there annual. Frank Gehry also designed the 925 foot long BP Bridge, a triple bypass which connects Millennium Park to the Daley Bicentennial Plaza and the Chicago lakefront and that It offers pedestrians an incomparable view of Grant Park, Chicago skyline, and Lake Michigan. Other attractions of Millennium Park include the fantastic Lurie Garden, that was designed to include native United States plants as an environment for bird species and beneficial insects. Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf has contributed a distinctive garden of both native and nonnative evergreen plants to create minimal maintenance garden which is visually appealing and environmentally sustainable.
Another popular attraction is the Crown Fountain, designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. The fountain consists of 2 fifty foot towers made from glass block, which stand at each end of the reflecting pool. Visitors to Millennium Park will also be fascinated by British artist Anish Kapoor massive Cloud Gate sculpture. Evaluating in at over one hundred tons, this 66 foot long elliptical stainless steel plate statue displays the Chicago skyline and the clouds above it.
