When Chicago’s Millennium Park opened 11 years ago, it transformed 24.5 acres of industrial wasteland into the city’s showplace for cutting-edge architecture, art, landscape design, music and more. Many of its iconic structures, such as the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the Cloud Gate sculpture (also known as “the Bean”) and Crown Fountain are made up of steel, and through October, you can stroll through the creation of these landmarks in the exhibition Millennium Park: An Anatomy in Photographs in the Park’s North Boeing Gallery.
Curated by John Vinci with assistance by Christopher Bartek, Vinci/Hamp Architects, Inc., the outdoor exhibition features the work of 16 photographers. Some were commissioned to document the construction of the park, others documented its art and architecture and still others used the park as their inspiration. Of the 58 large-format photographs in the exhibition, many portray views of the park that cannot be duplicated today.
For more about Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion, see our August 2004 article “Music in the Park.”