and Ben van Berkel will be designing pavilions in Chicago's Millennium Park as part of next year's 100th anniversary celebration of Daniel Burnham's Chicago Plan.


CHICAGO, June 23 -- Two of the world's leading architects will design temporary pavilions in Millennium Park as focal points for the regional celebration of the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's influential Plan of Chicago next year.

London-based Zaha Hadid and Ben van Berkel of UNStudio in Amsterdam will create innovative structures that symbolize Chicago's commitment to cutting-edge design and bold thinking about the future. The temporary pavilions will be centerpieces for the Burnham Plan Centennial, which includes hundreds of educational programs, arts events and open-space projects to recognize the 1909 Plan's strong influence and to inspire new ideas for the 21st Century.

The pavilions will open next June, and will include video exhibits and programming related to Burnham and big dreams for the future. Centennial activities will take place throughout the region during 2009, with an emphasis on summer and fall.

Hadid's dramatically fluid and technically innovative work is increasingly seen around the world in an array of remarkable buildings. They include a BMW car factory in Leipzig, Germany; the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany; railway stations in Innsbruck, Austria; and the Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion in Spain. Her firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, is working on high-speed train stations, the Aquatics Centre for the 2012 London Olympics, and arts buildings, opera houses, private residences and office buildings in places ranging from Dubai to China to Moscow. Her only American building is the acclaimed Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, which opened in 2003. In 2004, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Van Berkel is a rising star of inventive, computer-aided architecture, with such work as the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany; the Moebius House in northeastern Amsterdam; and the Erasmus Bridge, which has become a modern icon of Rotterdam. His firm, UNStudio, which includes his wife and business partner Caroline Bos, also works on urban infrastructure projects, like the Arnhem Central transportation hub in the Netherlands and they designed an aerial tramway in Portland, Ore. Its first major United States structure will be a 20-story apartment building in Manhattan.

Hadid and van Berkel have attracted praise for distinguished work in architectural competitions and numerous exhibitions. Also educators, they and their studios will participate at Chicago architecture schools in workshops and presentations related to the pavilion projects, Hadid at Illinois Institute of Technology and van Berkel at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"These two wonderful architects have done the kind of provocative new thinking about buildings and metropolitan life that we intend to encourage here with the Burnham celebration," said John Bryan, co-chair of the Centennial Committee. "But this is just the beginning. In the months to come, we'll be announcing an impressive list of activities and projects that will make the centennial a major event for all the people of this region."

Burnham's vision encompassed a region sweeping from Kenosha, southwest through DeKalb, and east along the southern shore of Lake Michigan. He believed that the city needed to be considered as part of its broader region, with highways, railroads, open spaces and public buildings designed to make it easy for people to move from home to work to leisure. He also championed art and culture as factors that would attract employers and jobs by making the region a desirable place to live.

The 1909 Plan set a national standard for urban and regional planning and gave Chicago a blueprint for major improvements that were undertaken throughout the 20th Century, providing many of the iconic places of today's city. Just as important as the Plan itself was the civic involvement of business and political leaders who implemented key components, such as Wacker Drive, the Michigan Avenue Bridge, the forest preserve system and the public lakefront.

The Centennial celebration aims to inspire and educate residents throughout the region about their opportunity to advance big and creative ideas for the future. Through its variety of events and initiatives, the Centennial will mirror Burnham's broad geographic scope and the Plan's broad range of topics and issues.

Burnham was an acclaimed architect who directed the design and construction of the "White City" for the Columbian Exposition in 1894. The contrast between the beautiful but temporary exposition and the dirty and congested city of Chicago inspired Burnham to envision the ideal city. He drew inspiration from international cities, and included summaries of plans for Rome, Paris, Vienna and London in one of the Plan's opening chapters. The Burnham Plan Centennial Committee hopes the temporary pavilions in Millennium Park will inspire people and organizations to envision what the Chicago metropolitan region should become in the next 100 years.

In and around the temporary pavilions will be Burnham Centennial exhibits and events to stimulate thinking about the future, including video representations of the visions of some of Chicago's leading architects and urban designers. The pavilions will be installed on the park's Chase Promenade South, just north of Monroe Street and east of the Crown Fountain. The site is just west of where the elegant pedestrian bridge from the Art Institute of Chicago's new wing will touch down at the edge of the park's Great Lawn. Each pavilion will be installed within a 60-foot by 90-foot space.

George A. Ranney, co-chair of the Centennial Committee, added, "We hope the pavilions will demonstrate our willingness to draw on the best thinking from around the world as we focus on tough issues faced by Burnham that are still with us today. These include efficient transportation, the overall quality of life and our region's relationship to nature. About 250 communities, organizations and institutions have already agreed to sponsor events and projects that will add up to a new wave of big, bold thinking about the best ways to make our region an excellent place in which to live."

Centennial events include specially commissioned music, re-enactments, in-school programs and community initiatives throughout the region. Area libraries, local governments, civic groups, universities, school systems, professional design and planning groups and cultural institutions will announce specific events and projects over the next several months. Some will focus on fun and celebration, while others are designed to spark serious discussion about the best ways to make this region a leader in the global competition for jobs and prosperity.

The architects were asked to create structures that are temporary, environmentally friendly and recyclable. At the end of the celebration, in the fall of 2009, they will be dismantled and recycled into public art by Chicago artist Dan Peterman, who is internationally known for his work exploring the intersection of art and ecology. He will conduct a design process to reuse the buildings' components.

"This process, which I see as a companion to the actual design of the pavilions, will explore options for thoughtful, long-term repurposing of the material resources used in the two structures," Peterman said.

The announcement of the pavilions project was made jointly by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Millennium Park Inc., the Art Institute of Chicago and the Burnham Plan Centennial Committee, which is raising the money to design and build the pavilions.

"One hundred years later, the vision of Daniel Burnham is an inspiration to urban planners and people everywhere," said Lois Weisberg, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. "Here in Chicago, his memory continues to challenge us to think and dream big, and evidence of that can be clearly seen in our magnificent Millennium Park. The Centennial project ties the past to the future, honoring Burnham with dazzling installations from two of the world's leading architects."

"The Art Institute of Chicago is thrilled to have these pavilions by Zaha Hadid and UNStudio as our neighbors in 2009," said James Cuno, president and Eloise W. Martin Director of the museum. "Opening at the same time as our Modern Wing, designed by Renzo Piano, there is no better proof that Chicago continues to be at the leading edge of architectural innovation, just as it was in Burnham's vision."