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Millennium Park Attractions

Cloud Gate-Popular Attraction At Millennium Park

Cloud Gate is a 3-story, 110-ton steel sculpture it is also called as “The Bean” due to its legume-like shape. Cloud Gate is designed by the world-renown artist Anish Kapoor. Cloud Gate is center piece of the AT&T Plaza and is located on top of Park Grill and adjacent to the Chase Promenade.

Cloud Gate is wildly popular, it was privately funded and the total cost was $23 million, which was considerably more than the original estimate of $6 million. The design was inspired by liquid mercury. It measures 66-feet long by 33-feet high.

The sculpture is made of stainless steel plates that create an elliptically-arched, highly reflective work with Chicago’s skyline. When Millennium Park opened in 2004, the grid of welds around each metal panel was visible, so in 2005 workers polished out the seams. Cloud Gate is a highly-polished reflective steel sculpture and its exterior reflects and transforms the city’s skyline.

Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate's arch to fully experience the majestic nature of the work. One of the features of the cloud gate is the omphalos, which is located in the center of the underside of the sculpture. The omphalos is an indentation, with its mirrored surface it provides multiple reflections of any subject situated directly beneath it when looking up.

 

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion- Centerpiece Of Millennium Park

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion was designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, winner of the National Medal of Art. Pritzker Pavilion is one of the principal highlights of Millennium Park; it’s a bandshell with 4,000 fixed seats plus additional lawn seating for 7,000.

The Characteristic of the Pritzker Pavilion consists of curving planes of stainless steel resembling the graceful blooming of a flower or the unfurling sails of a massive ship. The Pavilion stands 120-feet high, with a swirling headdress of brushed stainless steel ribbons that frame the stage opening and it also connects to an overhead trellis of crisscrossing steel pipes.

The Pritzker Pavilion is a revolutionary outdoor concert venue; it is the home of the Grant Park Music Festival presented by the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Grant Park Music Festival is the nation's only remaining free, municipally-supported, outdoor, classical music series. This Pavilion has a great state-of-the-art sound system, the first of its kind in the country, and it was designed to sound similar to indoor concert hall with digital innovations and enhanced sound so that it can be distributed to enhance sound equally over both the fixed seats and the lawn.

 

Bathesda Arcade

The photo shows Bathesda Arcade of Central Park just before sunrise

Millennium Park

Top View of the park in Chicago, with the cloud gate and the crown fountains.

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Millennium Park one of the major tourist destination of Chicago.

Griffith Park Fire in 2007

More than 817 acres of the park was burned in a devastating fire, destroying the bird sanctuary. The park was repaired and restored with some areas still closed for public.

Millennium Park Bike Station

Millennium Park has a Cycle Center which is a heated and air conditioned indoor bicycle parking facility built by the city of Chicago and now sponsored by McDonald's hence now named as McDonald's Cycle Center.

Balboa Park Botanical Building

Balboa Park Botanical Building The Botanical Building is one of the largest wood lath structures in the world. It has many tropical plants and exotic seasonal flowers in this lovely space. A Lily pond is situated to the south of this building.

What is a Park?

Park is a large protected area in its natural or semi-natural form created for the recreation or preservation of a cultural or natural resource. Most of the parks consist of many different types of flora and fauna.