Opened in 2004 under the aegis of mayor Richard M. Daley, Chicago's Millennium Park upstages its taller and more famous neighbors, the skyscraper forest it's nested within. The true power of my praise comes from a willingness to forgive the park its nature as a collection of follies-- there isn't much of a space there, really. The park is more a collection of organs floating without a body, left to bleed into the city. Confronted with the demonstrated ability to attract and entertain a diverse population, however, the architectural concern of space and the quality thereof seem like something of a folly in itself. An American public space that doesn't have to resort to neo-classical trimmings would be a great achievement, but until that's a cultural (and not just architectural) reality I'll excitedly take a place as active-- and at times beautiful-- as the Millennium Park any day.



Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker bandshell pulls some important weight by being one of the most visible portions of the park itself and thus a bit of a landmark. The space created underneath the bandshell's adjoining canopy is a greater accomplishment, though, as it manages to encapsulate a rather vast swath of seating into a coherent theatre environment without cordoning it off. Nearby Lurie Garden designed by Gustafson Guthrie Nichols Ltd., Piet Oudolf and Robert Israel features a boardwalk atop a small stream which invites visitors to sit down, soak their feet, and stake a temporary claim. Here, it's the act of sitting for a moment and dipping one's feet in the water that makes the space.

If Gehry and the Lurie Garden team act spatially, Anish Kapoor operates in the realm of effects with a fantastical, hyper-reflective kidney bean viewing device. Kapoor's bean plays the important role of reflecting the city back to itself. Both on a personal "1,2,3, say cheese" kind of way and also as a means of seeing the city from the inside out in its totality. Those tall buildings at the perimeter of the park, looming over their newest competitor, are contained neatly by the smooth curvature of Kapoor's kidney.

The final site in the park combines all of this to great effect. Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain creates a space of spectacle. And I mean this: it operates both spatially and spectacularly. Like the Lurie Garden, Plensa's spatial moves are light and effeciently deployed. Two glassblock monoliths and a puddle of water nary a space make. The brilliance of Plensa's design is thus in the necessity of all elements: it needs spatial cues and spectacle to function successfully.

A shallow puddle marks the area of opportunity, carefully demarcated by a monolith at either end. The minimal sense of enclosure provided by these monoliths allows just enough privacy to lower inhabtions so that people go a little crazy. That is, until a giant video portrait starts spitting water out of one of the internal faces of the monoliths and then everyone goes just plain bonkers. Children learn the system quickly -- line up to get in the direct spitting path, rush to the monolith, and catch the ensuing waterfall. Parents are not immune to the spectacle; seemingly no one is. When a giant video face offers to spit on you, well, you go for it.

That the Millennium Park gets people out and enjoying a public space in the heart of the city is a great accomplishment, but Crown Fountain's position as corner stone of this success is telling of something larger than Chicago itself. Plensa's monoliths succeed in activating the public realm in ways that an Oldenburg Clothespin never could while also avoiding the tired rehashing of traditionalist aesthetics. Here, modest technology is deployed to create a contemporary spectacle of corporeal experience without crossing the line into camp or cartoon. Crown Fountain is entertaining hordes of visitors on a daily basis, but it's also helping us inch closer to accepting a built public realm that's as contemporary as the urban visions we dream up.


Bryan Boyer's shoes are still a bit funky after splashing around in
Crown Fountain.