Millennium Park's Exuberant Spirit

Chicago - September, 2009 - Michigan Avenue

Frank Gehry’s exuberant architecture seems to have taken the world by storm. I'll vouch for the architect's design of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. 

The building proved to have superb acoustics when I heard a string quartet play there. Before attending the concert, I'd been won over by Gehry's exuberant style,

 impressed by the Concert Hall's open-air gardens, which are also open to the public.

On my must-see list of Gehry buildings? The acclaimed Guggenheim Bilbao Museum

turned Bilbao, a Spanish port city, into a must-see destination. 

In the meantime, I visit Chicago in September during the World Music Festival,

where venues for free performances include the 

Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion. 
Millennium Park Peristyle Monument (replica)

The music from the Pavilion carries clear as a bell over an extensive area, encompassing the parkland and the Lurie Garden.

The view on the right shows the garden,  photographed through the glass wall of the sculpture terrace atop the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.

(Next feature will focus on the Lurie Garden, with plantings by Piet Oudolf.)

In the distance, across Monroe Street, the newly opened,  Renzo Piano-designed wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. The straightforward, strongly rectilinear lines of the building aim to complement the

 angular modernity of the Millennium Park landscape and minimalist Lurie Garden. Fantastic views unfold from the raised walkway  connecting the Lurie Garden to the Art Institute!

Beckoning from on high, the ramp invites you to enter either ....the museum,

 or Terzo Piano, an elegant new restaurant.