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Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/335804
photography by getty Images (bean); scott mcdonald/hedrIch blessIng (prItzker); opposIte page: photography by hedrIch blessIng 4 3 A MODERN MOVEMENT ChiCago power player Cindy pritzker reshapes the park's design by pushing for a Contemporary aesthetiC. Cindy Pritzker suggests that initial design concepts for the Jay Pritzker Pavilion were "in the wrong millennium"—like a band shell with an arch, gaslight lamp posts, and static art on either side. "Why would we build in the past when we're looking to the future?" says Pritzker, who with her husband, the late Jay Pritzker (who ran the Hyatt Hotel chain and Marmon Group), and the rest of her family donated $15 million to the cause—a quarter of the pavilion's final $60 million price tag. Thanks to Aaron Montgomery Ward's 19th-century "open, clear, and free" land decree, only works of art could be placed in the park, not permanent structures—or else they had to be built underground, like the Harris Theater. Which is why Pritzker offered an alternate suggestion: Get architect Frank Gehry so the "pavilion would be the art." For many, this was the turning point toward a more modern movement in Millennium Park. "In an instant it just kind of changed for me," says Donna LaPietra, chairwoman of the Millennium Park Foundation, which has raised private-sector funds for the park. "Cindy was the next step that really changed the framing of the park." A DROP OF MERCURY despite enormous Costs and Consider- able delays, Cloud Gate proves to be well worth the hassle. Thanks to a Chicago Tribune headline, it is now known simply as "the Bean." But for a long time the iconic sculpture inspired by a drop of mercury—officially titled Cloud Gate—was name- less. Although Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor first presented his idea in March 1999, no one could have predicted how long it would take to complete this 110 -ton sculpture. Kapoor wanted his work to be interactive and engaging. "This was a new place from which to look at Chicago," he says. "I wanted to make something that would engage both the city and the sky." When the sculpture finally arrived in April 2004, it was just three months before the park's opening. The cost of creating and transporting Cloud Gate had skyrocketed from $6 million to $23 million, paid with private funds. Uhlir says it "looked like Frankenstein's brain," with 168 stainless steel plates stitched together with tack welds. Several months after the park opened to the public, the sculpture was tented so it could be polished, and it was officially completed two years later. These days, Kapoor jokes, does it really matter how late it was finished? "I don't think so," he says. "When they commissioned me, they said, 'We want you to make something that will last a thousand years.' Well, let's hope so. Ten is a very small fraction." 2 The graceful curves of Jay Pritzker Pavilion were inspired by Vermeer's Woman with a Water Jug. Cloud Gate has won accolades from art critics, tourists—and the American Welding Society. 124 mIchIganavemag.com