The sculpture “Cloud Gate,” also known as “the Bean,” is a favorite tourist spot, as its mirrored surface reflects Chicago’s skyscrapers. “It’s a different type of architecture and public art,' says Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin.
"I see possibility, I see contemporary technology used to make art, I see the clouds drawn down into this jelly bean-like polished mirrored surface where you can almost touch them. I just see wonder, and I see a new emblem of Chicago,” Kamin says. “It’s perfect for Chicago because it’s placed right at the foot of the skyline and so it reflects the great architectural achievements of the city, but in a way that you’ve never seen them before.
“It’s not the traditional public sculpture, the general on horseback, you know, the great white man. This is down on the ground, it’s participatory,” he says. “It’s a different type of architecture and public art.”, which opened in 2009. Designed by architect Jeanne Gang, Aqua “was imagined as a vertical landscape made up of hills, valleys, and pools,” according to its project page on Studio Gang’s website.
"The hancock is just the essence of Chicago. It’s a truncated obelisk, so it doesn’t go up straight—it goes up 100 stories and it tapers inward as it rises.” Another Chicago skyscraper that is decidedly not blue collar is the Lake Point Tower. Completed in 1968, its unusual Y-shaped plan was designed to maximize privacy for the building’s residents and give every unit a view of Lake Michigan, according to architect George Schipporeit.Like Aqua, the Lake Point Tower has a curved form that stands out against the right angles that typify Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago.
"It has flying buttresses, it has grotesques — those are gargoyle-like sculptures that signify the importance of freedom of the press — it has this gothic crown that stands out beautifully alongside the clock tower of the Wrigley Building," Kamin says.
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