Crown Fountain
Encyclopedia
Crown Fountain is an interactive work of public art
and video sculpture
featured in Chicago
's Millennium Park
, which is located in the Loop
community area
. Designed by Catalan
artist Jaume Plensa
and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects
, it opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a black granite
reflecting pool
placed between a pair of glass brick
towers. The towers are 50 feet (15.2 m) tall, and they use light-emitting diode
s (LEDs) to display digital videos on their inward faces. Construction and design of the Crown Fountain cost $17 million. Weather permitting, the water operates from May to October, intermittently cascading down the two towers and spouting through a nozzle on each tower's front face.
Residents and critics have praised the fountain for its artistic and entertainment features. It highlights Plensa's themes of dualism
, light, and water, extending the use of video technology from his prior works. Its use of water is unique among Chicago's many fountains, in that it promotes physical interaction between the public and the water. Both the fountain and Millennium Park are highly accessible because of their universal design
.
Crown Fountain has been one of the most controversial of all the Millennium Park features. Before it was even built, some were concerned that the sculpture's height violated the aesthetic tradition of the park. After construction, surveillance cameras were installed atop the fountain, which led to a public outcry (and their quick removal).
However, the fountain has survived its somewhat contentious beginnings to find its way into Chicago pop culture. It is a popular subject for photographers and a common gathering place. While some of the videos displayed are of scenery, most attention has focused on its video clips of local residents; hundreds of Chicagoans visit the fountain hoping to see themselves appearing on one of the fountain's two screens. The fountain is a public play area and offers people an escape from summer heat, allowing children to frolic in the fountain's water.
File:Millennium Park Map labels.png|Image map
of Millennium Park. Each feature or label is wikilinked. Crown Fountain is in the lower right corner. |alt=Rectangular map of a park about 1.5 times as wide as it is tall. The top half is dominated by the Pritzker Pavilion and Great Lawn. The lower half is divided into three roughly equal sections: (left to right) Wrigley Square, McCormick Tribune Plaza, and Crown Fountain. North is to the left.|400px|thumb|left
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desc bottom-left
Grant Park
, which is between Lake Michigan
and the central business district
, is commonly called "Chicago's Front Yard". Its northwest corner had been Illinois Central
rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park
. Millennium Park was conceived in 1998 as the capstone of Grant Park, to celebrate the new millennium and to feature world-renowned architects, artists, designers, landscape architects, and urban planners. As of 2007, Millennium Park trails only Navy Pier
as a Chicago tourist attraction. The fountain is centrally located in Chicago: it is east of Michigan Avenue
and its Historic Michigan Boulevard District
, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute of Chicago
; and south of Madison Street. Looking north from the fountain, viewers see some of the tallest buildings in the United States (Aon Center
, Two Prudential Plaza
, and One Prudential Plaza
).
and his family agreed to sponsor a water feature
in Millennium Park
. Unlike other park feature sponsors, the Crowns acted independently of Millennium Park officials; they conducted independent surveys of water technologies, held their own informal design contest, and stayed active in the design and engineering of the project.
The Crowns were open-minded about the choice of artist; wanting a modern work, they solicited proposals from a list of prospective artists and architects. Jaume Plensa researched the traditions and history of fountains and studied anthropomorphism
in fountain imagery. Some of his early ideas for the project referenced Buckingham Fountain
, but these were soon abandoned. His presentation to the Crown family started with a slide show of fountains from the Middle Ages
through the 20th century. Plensa focused on the philosophical meanings associated with fountains, their history, use and art. His presentation included computer animation
of facial expressions. The other finalists were Maya Lin
, who presented a low-height horizontal form, and Robert Venturi
, who presented a fountain that would have been 150 feet (45.7 m) tall. In January 2000, Plensa won the commission to design the fountain over Lin and Venturi. The installation is a video sculpture, commissioned to operate thirty years.
, which he had expanded to artworks in which the viewers are outside, and the visible subjects of the art are inside containers and hollow spaces. In the 1990s, he completed several outdoor sculptures in which he explored the use of light (The Star of David (1998) at Stockholm
's Raoul Wallenberg Square, Bridge of Light (1998) in Jerusalem), and LED technology, video, and computer design (Gläserne Seele & Mr. Net in Brandenburg (1999–2000)). In his public art, Plensa challenged himself to involve the viewer with his art, which led to his conception of the Crown Fountain. His objective was to create a socially relevant, interactive fountain for the 21st century. Since water is the focus of a fountain, and since Chicago, and especially Millennium Park, is so greatly affected by the nearby waterfront, Plensa sought to create an eternal water work to complement the local natural inspirations. Because of the colder winters common to the climate of Chicago, Plensa created a fountain that would remained vibrant when the water was inactive in the wintertime, so the fountain is an experience of light themes and the use of video technology.
Plensa explores dualism with Crown Fountain, where he has two randomly selected faces "conversing" with each other. Plensa feels that by using faces, he can represent the diversity of the city both in ethnicity and in age. The artist intends to portray the sociocultural evolution
of the city by updating the collection of images. His representation has become a part of the city's pop culture; the first few episodes of the first season of Prison Break
featured shots of the fountain.
Plensa feels that the challenge in the creation of successful work of public art
is to integrate the viewer into an interactive relationship with the art. The fountain is known for encouraging its visitors to splash and slide in the reflecting pool, jostle for position under the water spout and place themselves under the cascade. This interactivity was to some degree accidental. Although the city planned for some interactivity, the transformation of the fountain into a water park for kids within hours of opening surprised Plensa. Now, when the National Weather Service
issues summer heat advisories
and the Governor of Illinois
declares state office buildings as official daytime cooling center
s, the national press points to Crown Fountain as a respite for inhabitants of the Chicago metropolitan area.
, the same model used in the production of the three Star Wars
prequels. About 20 SAIC students took part in what became an informal master's course in public art
for the project. Faculty from Columbia College Chicago
was also involved in the production of the video. The high-definition equipment was used because of the scale of the project. Because the image proportions were like a movie screen with a width far exceeding its height, the camera was turned on its side during filming.
Each face appears on the sculpture for a total of 5 minutes using various parts of individual 80-second videos. A 40-second section is played at one-third speed forward and backward, running for a total of 4 minutes. Then, there is a subsequent segment, where the mouth is puckering, that is stretched to 15 seconds. This is followed by a section, in which the water appears to spout from the open mouth, that is stretched to last for 30 seconds. Finally, there is a smile after the completion of the water spouting from the mouth, that is slowed to extend for 15 seconds. Of the original 1,051 subjects filmed, 960 videos were determined to be usable for the project. Originally, the set of images was presumed to be the beginning of a work in progress, but as of 2009 no additional videos are planned.
To achieve the effect in which water appears to be flowing from subjects' mouths, each video has a segment where the subject's lips are puckered, which is then timed to correspond to the spouting water, reminiscent of gargoyle
fountains. Each face is cropped so that no hair and usually no ears are visible. Since there is no tripod designed for cameras turned on their sides, an adjustable barber/dentist's chair was used to minimize the need for the movement of the state-of-the-art camera during filming. Nonetheless, in some case, digital manipulation was necessary to properly simulate puckering in the exact proper location on the video. Many of the faces had to be stretched in order to get the mouths properly positioned. Additionally, each video was color-corrected for brightness, contrast and color saturation. Both the playback equipment and the final videos had to be further adjusted to account for sunlight during viewing.
, was also a large contributor; the entire $17 million cost was provided by private donations. The initial proposed cost for the fountain had been $15 million.
After two architectural firms refused the contract to make Plensa's design a reality, the firm Krueck and Sexton Architects
accepted. Public art was a departure from Krueck & Sexton's residential and corporate office-dominated portfolio, which includes buildings like the Spertus Institute
. Collaboration between the artist, architectural team, and consultants proved to be crucial to the success of the project. The fountain's black granite reflecting pool measures 48 by and has an approximate water depth of 0.25 inches (6.4 mm). It displays videos on two LED
screens, each encapsulated in a glass brick tower measuring 50 by. The firm designed a special stainless steel
T-frame both to bear the load of the walls, which are 50 feet (15.2 m) high, and to withstand lateral wind forces. The frame holds all the glass blocks and transfers the load to the base in a zigzag pattern. Rods measuring 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) in diameter anchor to the structure and project into the frame for lateral stability, while triangular corner brackets add support.
After several dozen glass manufacturing firms were interviewed, L. E. Smith Glass Company emerged as the company to produce 22,500 glass blocks near the upper limit of the size of press glass formed from hand-poured molten glass and cast iron
molds. The process used sand and soda ash heated to a temperature of 2600 °F (1,426.7 °C) and "gathered" with a large clay ball resembling a honey dipper. Rather than use a standard plunger to ensure the glass that sagged off the rod spread to the corners of the mold, they relied on gravity. The full mold was annealed
(reheated in an oven to 1100 °F (593.3 °C)) and cooled. Over the course of four months of production, about 350 blocks were produced per day.
The glass was custom-made at a factory in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania
, and was fitted into small sections of the frame. Each section was shipped by truck from this plant in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, with approximately seven sections per tower face. The glass is white glass, rather than the usual green glass that results from iron
impurities. This has the tradeoff of increased image clarity, but greater dirt visibility. Each block is 5 by with glass thin enough to avoid image distortion. On each block, one of the six faces is polished, and the other five surfaces are textured.
The structure for the blocks was a challenge. At first, the design team had considered switching to plastic blocks, until the team found Circle-Redmont Inc., a prefabricated glass panel company in which specializes in structural glass panel systems and has supplied structural glass sidewalk panels for the New York City Subway
system. Circle-Redmont came up with the plan of turning grates on their sides to be used as building elements. The individual grids are 5 feet (1.5 m) tall and either 16 feet (4.9 m) or 23 feet (7 m) wide with cell capacity of an average of 250 blocks. Each tower is composed of 44 grids stacked and welded. The combination of the refraction
of the glass and the thinness of the metal make the grid virtually invisible.
The fountain uses 11000 gallons (50,007 l) per hour, 97% of which is recycled back into the system. Getting the water to the spout took ingenuity. Although consideration was given to omitting a LED tile, it was determined that the images would then look as though they were each missing a tooth. Instead, one tile in each tower is recessed about 6 inches (152.4 mm) to allow the installation of 1 inches (25.4 mm) clear tubing for the water nozzle. The water regularly spills over the fountain and down the sides of the towers and intermittently spouts from the nozzle. Two essential custom fittings contribute to the artistic vision of the fountain: a custom glass block at the upper edge for guiding the water's descent while remaining unobtrusive, and a plastic nozzle fitted to the stainless steel frame to control the rate of water flow and reduce liability to the city for any injuries sustained by the fountain's interactive participants. The interactive participants are usually children playing in the stream from the water spout or under the cascade. The risk that the spouting water would knock people down made the design both a legal and a physical challenge.
The fountains use over one million LEDs. The inner surface of each tower uses 147 smaller screens with a total of 264,480 LED points (each with two red, one blue and two green LEDs). The physical demands of LED screens, in particular the red, green, and blue long-life light bulbs and the requisite circuitry, created three major challenges: supporting the physical structure, combating heat buildup, and optimizing perceptibility of the display. Plensa had used LED fixtures on previous projects, and thus had some experience with these issues. The LED structure is not supported as a single wall (which would be 50 feet (15.2 m) high), but rather as several segments that are noticeable as visible horizontal bands every few feet: these show where the LED equipment is supported. The heat generated is handled by fans that cool the air at the bottom, that then works its way through the chimney-like tower. Perceptibility was determined to be optimal with LED lights 2 inches (50.8 mm) behind the glass.
LEDs were chosen because they were viewed as the lowest maintenance option of the possible color changing fixtures. LEDs fit into an electrical circuit, causing illumination by the movement of electron
s in the semiconductor
material and making a filament unnecessary, so the bulbs never burn out and do not get too hot. Fins were added to the screens to keep direct sunlight from hitting the LEDs. Color Kinetics (now part of Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions, which is now called Philips Color Kinetics) ColorBlast 12 LEDs fixtures are used to illuminate the tower structures and glass in an attempt to meet Plensa's objective that the towers have a light and translucent appearance, with their internal structures reflecting light from behind the glass surface. The electronics were designed to be adaptable to the time of day, weather and season and to meet the desired century-long longevity and dependability objectives set by the design team in response to the thirty-year directive.
The 9423 square feet (875.4 m²) pool used 3 by paver
s that weigh 250 pounds (113.4 kg). The pavers were rested on screw jack pedestals in order to be leveled and shimmed. The pavers had to be perfectly leveled for the water to work correctly because the fountain incorporates numerous sensors to regulate the flow and level of the water.
During construction the underground parking garage remained open. An additional challenge was designing the structure to facilitate interior access for ongoing maintenance and repairs, while accommodating two levels of underground parking underneath. The challenge was solved by combining a T-bar grid to absorb weight with about 150 "outriggers", or "tiebacks", inserted through the video wall to support the glass blocks and absorb wind loads. This design allows for the removal of individual glass blocks for cleaning or repair without disruption to the display. The filtered air inside the towers helps minimize the need for cleaning. Crown Fountains design not only included interior access for technical repairs, but also incorporated exemplary, non-discriminatory, barrier-free accessibility, because its interactivity is not limited to the able-bodied. The force
of the water accounts for the entire range of possible interactive visitors.
_of_south_tower2.jpg)
Plensa's design of Crown Fountain was unveiled to the public on July 16–18, during the 2004 grand opening celebrations for Millennium Park, which was sponsored by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. At the time of the unveiling, Crown Fountain, like the nearby Cloud Gate
, was incomplete because only 300 of the videos had been refined for public display. It was officially dedicated on July 24, 2004 as part of a special private fundraising party that raised $3 million for the Millennium Park Conservancy fund.
servers and equipment temperature sensors. Hard drives contain all the individual electronic computer files of the face videos. Generally, the computer programs automatically perform tasks such as determining when the face will pucker and, if weather conditions permit, when to turn the water on and off. Using low- rather than high-resolution
images was both less expensive and created a better display for the average viewer. A Barco
show control
ler selects the sequence of faces one at a time and determines a random tower lighting selection of one of eight LED colors programmed into an Electronic Theatre Controls
(ETC) Emphasis control system. At night, the ETC system controls spotlight
s that illuminate the cascading water and that are dimmed by special wet-use location ground fault circuit interrupters. The control room covers an area equal to 26 parking spaces in the underground parking garage, which costs the city $100,000 annually in terms of the opportunity cost
of lost revenue (in 2004 dollars).
with a continuous, dynamic exhibit of lights and electronic images. Although the LED screens on the towers periodically display clips of landscape
s such as waterfalls, most intriguing are the display of faces of Chicago residents. About 1,000 faces of Chicagoans are shown in a random rotation, the order determined using a Barco show controller. Each face is displayed for five minutes, with a brief period between each of these videos during which the sculpture is unlit. As a result, no more than 12 faces appear per hour during the summer. However, during the winter a version without the final one minute of puckering is shown, so the video segments then are only four minutes each. The video pattern also includes a three-minute water scene every half-hour and a 30-second fade-to-black every 15 minutes. If all the faces were shown consecutively, instead of randomly, they would each appear about once every eight days. A June 2007 article in the Chicago Sun-Times reported that many of the subjects who had their images digitized
for the project had yet to either see their own images or hear of anyone who had seen them.
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The spouting water from the faces of the towers appears to be flowing from the displayed subject's mouth from a 6 inches (152.4 mm) nozzle located in the center of each interior face 12 feet (3.7 m) above the reflecting pool. Images are shown daily year-round, while the water feature only operates from May 1 to approximately October 31, weather permitting. The park is open to the public daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Each tower is illuminated from within on three sides by approximately 70 color-changing Color Kinetics LED lighting fixtures per tower, while the fourth side features opposing Barco LED display screens. At night, some of the videos are replaced by images of nature or solid colors. Also at night, the other three sides of the fountain display changing colors. The outer Color Kinetics surfaces randomly display the translucent glow of one of eight colors along with each of the inner opposing faces. As a video sculpture
with a variety of cascade and water spout fountain modes, the sculpture is a fluid, dynamic evolving artwork.
(pictured above right) to drain the 11520 US gal (43,608 l) of water per minute. When the videos are not on the front of the tower, water cascades down each of the facade
s. The water is filtered, pumped and recirculated through the fountain. Dual pump rooms below each tower draw water from a reservoir beneath the reflecting pool. There are 12 mechanical pumps that are regulated from a control room in the underground parking garage beneath the south tower of the fountain. The water in the reflecting pool has a depth of about 0.33 millimetre (0.012992125984252 in).
twice sued the city of Chicago in the 1890s to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park, and to keep it from building new ones. As a result, the city has what are termed the Montgomery Ward height restrictions on buildings and structures in Grant Park. However, Crown Fountain and Jay Pritzker Pavilion
, which stands 139 feet (42.4 m) tall, were exempt from the height restriction because they were classified as works of art
and not buildings or structures.
In November 2006, Crown Fountain became the focus of a public controversy when the city added surveillance cameras atop each tower. Purchased through a $52 million Department of Homeland Security grant to the Chicago area, the cameras were part of a surveillance system augmenting eight other cameras covering all of Millennium Park. The city said the cameras, similar to those used throughout the city at high-crime areas and traffic intersections, were intended to remain on the towers for several months until permanent, less intrusive replacements were secured. City officials had consulted the architects who collaborated with Plensa on the tower designs, but Plensa himself had not been notified. Public reaction was negative, as bloggers and the artistic community decried the cameras on the towers as inappropriate and a blight. The city said that the cameras were largely for security reasons, but also partly to help park officials monitor burnt-out lights. The Chicago Tribune
quickly published an article concerning the cameras as well as the public reaction, and the cameras were removed the next day. Plensa supported their removal.
, and Buckingham Fountain, as well as natural water features such as Old Faithful, are examples of the ability of water to attract people and hold their attention. Crown Fountain has more interactivity than other Chicago fountains, such as Buckingham Fountain and Lorado Taft
's Fountain of the Great Lakes
and Fountain of Time
(all but the last are in Grant Park). These other Chicago fountains are traditional in that they discourage viewer touching; Buckingham Fountain is surrounded by a fence, and Taft's fountains are surrounded by moat
s. In contrast, Crown Fountain provides an open invitation to play in the fountain's water.
U.S. News & World Report
describes the fountain as an exemplary feature of the city's numerous urban parks. Chicago Tribune
architecture critic Blair Kamin
, who is pleased with the sculptures' verticalness, says the fountain helps appropriately depict the modern 21st-century urban park. The Chicago Sun-Times
describes the fountain as "eye-catching, crowd-friendly ... high-tech [and] ... contemporary". The New York Times calls the fountain an "extraordinary art object". Frommer's
describes the fountain as public art at its best. The beauty of the fountain is, as the San Francisco Chronicle
explains, that it is high-concept art for all to enjoy. The Financial Times
refers to the fountain as a "techno-fountain". The fountain is praised for its technical features by industry magazines and has won various awards. The project won the 2006 Bombay Sapphire prize for its design work with glass. Critical reviews were not unanimous in their praise. One Chicago Tribune critic was not impressed with JumboTron
-like art, although he conceded the participatory element reminded him in a positive way of the jungle gym
element of the Chicago Picasso
.
The fountain is featured on the cover of Philip Jodidio's 2005 book, Architecture: Art. Although Plensa is considered to be a conceptual artist, according to Jodidio, Plensa created a work whose architectural aspects are paramount. Its location juxtaposed with the Historic Michigan Boulevard District's skywall highlights these aspects. Jodidio considers the work to be a modernization of the gargoyle theme, and feels that the scale of the enlarged faces humanize the work and challenges the architecture. The towers are an integral part of the skyline that have achieved rare permanence for contemporary art.
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
and video sculpture
Video sculpture
Video sculptures, a type of video installation, involve one or more video screens that spectators move among or stand in front of. Video sculptures formed of more than one screen may broadcast a single program or may simultaneously broadcast different interconnected sequences on several channels....
featured in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's Millennium Park
Millennium Park
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously...
, which is located in the Loop
Chicago Loop
The Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...
community area
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
. Designed by Catalan
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
artist Jaume Plensa
Jaume Plensa
Jaime Plensa is an Spanish artist and sculptor.-Biography:Plensa was born at Barcelona. Plensa studied art in his home city, in the "Llotja" School and in the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Jorge....
and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects
Krueck and Sexton Architects
Krueck and Sexton Architects is an architecture firm located in Chicago. The firm was originally established in 1979 by Ronald Krueck and Keith Olsen under Krueck Olsen Architects, with Mark Sexton joining the company the following year...
, it opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a black granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
reflecting pool
Reflecting pool
A reflecting pool or reflection pool is a water feature found in gardens, parks, and at memorial sites. It usually consists of a shallow pool of water, undisturbed by fountain jets, for a calm reflective...
placed between a pair of glass brick
Glass brick
Glass brick, also known as glass block, is an architectural element made from glass. Glass bricks provide visual obscuration while admitting light...
towers. The towers are 50 feet (15.2 m) tall, and they use light-emitting diode
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
s (LEDs) to display digital videos on their inward faces. Construction and design of the Crown Fountain cost $17 million. Weather permitting, the water operates from May to October, intermittently cascading down the two towers and spouting through a nozzle on each tower's front face.
Residents and critics have praised the fountain for its artistic and entertainment features. It highlights Plensa's themes of dualism
Dualism
Dualism denotes a state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages. Dualism can refer to moral dualism, Dualism (from...
, light, and water, extending the use of video technology from his prior works. Its use of water is unique among Chicago's many fountains, in that it promotes physical interaction between the public and the water. Both the fountain and Millennium Park are highly accessible because of their universal design
Universal design
Universal design refers to broad-spectrum ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to both people without disabilities and people with disabilities....
.
Crown Fountain has been one of the most controversial of all the Millennium Park features. Before it was even built, some were concerned that the sculpture's height violated the aesthetic tradition of the park. After construction, surveillance cameras were installed atop the fountain, which led to a public outcry (and their quick removal).
However, the fountain has survived its somewhat contentious beginnings to find its way into Chicago pop culture. It is a popular subject for photographers and a common gathering place. While some of the videos displayed are of scenery, most attention has focused on its video clips of local residents; hundreds of Chicagoans visit the fountain hoping to see themselves appearing on one of the fountain's two screens. The fountain is a public play area and offers people an escape from summer heat, allowing children to frolic in the fountain's water.
Concept and design
Image map
In HTML and XHTML , an image map is a list of coordinates relating to a specific image, created in order to hyperlink areas of the image to various destinations . For example, a map of the world may have each country hyperlinked to further information about that country...
of Millennium Park. Each feature or label is wikilinked. Crown Fountain is in the lower right corner.
rect 51 18 145 80 McDonald's Cycle Center
McDonald's Cycle Center
McDonald's Cycle Center is an indoor bike station in the northeast corner of Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. The city of Chicago built the center at the intersection of East Randolph Street and Columbus Drive, and opened it July 2004...
rect 338 2 496 94BP Pedestrian Bridge
BP Pedestrian Bridge
The BP Pedestrian Bridge, or simply BP Bridge, is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Daley Bicentennial Plaza with Millennium Park, both parts of the larger Grant Park. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect...
rect 497 62 536 101BP Pedestrian Bridge
BP Pedestrian Bridge
The BP Pedestrian Bridge, or simply BP Bridge, is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Daley Bicentennial Plaza with Millennium Park, both parts of the larger Grant Park. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect...
rect 497 6 631 34 Columbus Drive
Columbus Drive (Chicago)
Columbus Drive is a north-south street in Chicago, Illinois which bisects Grant Park. It is 254 E in Chicago's street numbering system. Its south end is an interchange with Lake Shore Drive at Soldier Field...
rect 10 88 154 104 Exelon Pavilion NE
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 47 108 79 131 Exelon Pavilion NE
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 619 95 754 112 Exelon Pavilion SE
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 728 113 759 135 Exelon Pavilion SE
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 10 246 166 263 Exelon Pavilion NW
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 47 265 78 288 Exelon Pavilion NW
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 613 243 762 258 Exelon Pavilion SW
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 736 260 757 275 Exelon Pavilion SW
Exelon Pavilions
The Exelon Pavilions are four buildings that generate electricity from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...
rect 44 149 174 229 Harris Theater
Harris Theater (Chicago)
The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance is a 1,525-seat theater for the performing arts located along the northern edge of Millennium Park on Randolph Street in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, US...
rect 175 103 572 288 Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan...
rect 573 134 757 238 Lurie Garden
Lurie Garden
Lurie Garden is a garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Designed by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel, it opened on July 16, 2004. The garden is a combination of perennials, bulbs, grasses,...
rect 572 311 718 329 Nichols Bridgeway
Nichols Bridgeway
The Nichols Bridgeway is a pedestrian bridge located in Chicago, Illinois. The bridge begins at the Great Lawn of Millennium Park, crosses over Monroe Street and connects to the third floor of the West Pavilion of the Modern Wing, the Art Institute of Chicago's newest wing...
rect 516 298 777 306 Nichols Bridgeway
Nichols Bridgeway
The Nichols Bridgeway is a pedestrian bridge located in Chicago, Illinois. The bridge begins at the Great Lawn of Millennium Park, crosses over Monroe Street and connects to the third floor of the West Pavilion of the Modern Wing, the Art Institute of Chicago's newest wing...
rect 58 350 207 396 Chase Promenade North
Chase Promenade
Chase Promenade is an open-air, tree-lined pedestrian walkway that opened July 16, 2004. It is part of Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The Promenade was made possible by a gift from the Bank One Foundation...
rect 291 350 453 396 Chase Promenade Central
Chase Promenade
Chase Promenade is an open-air, tree-lined pedestrian walkway that opened July 16, 2004. It is part of Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The Promenade was made possible by a gift from the Bank One Foundation...
rect 537 350 687 396 Chase Promenade South
Chase Promenade
Chase Promenade is an open-air, tree-lined pedestrian walkway that opened July 16, 2004. It is part of Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The Promenade was made possible by a gift from the Bank One Foundation...
rect 313 397 431 424 AT&T Plaza
AT&T Plaza
AT&T Plaza is a public space that hosts the Cloud Gate sculpture. It is located in Millennium Park, which is a park built to celebrate the third millennium and which is located within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois in the United States...
rect 37 434 227 473 Boeing Gallery North
Boeing Galleries
- Past exhibitions :2005The first exhibition in the renamed Galleries was Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait, which was displayed on the Central Chase Promenade and South Boeing Gallery, appeared from June 10–October 10, 2005...
rect 516 433 757 469 Boeing Gallery South
Boeing Galleries
- Past exhibitions :2005The first exhibition in the renamed Galleries was Revealing Chicago: An Aerial Portrait, which was displayed on the Central Chase Promenade and South Boeing Gallery, appeared from June 10–October 10, 2005...
rect 337 426 416 470 Cloud Gate
Cloud Gate
Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and...
rect 60 486 216 546 Wrigley Square
Wrigley Square
Wrigley Square is a public square located in the northwest section of Millennium Park in the Historic Michigan Boulevard District of the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The square is located at the southeast corner of the intersection of East Randolph Street and North Michigan...
rect 287 477 457 543 McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink
McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink
McCormick Tribune Plaza & Ice Rink or McCormick Tribune Plaza is a multi-purpose venue within Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, USA. On December 20, 2001, it became the first attraction in Millennium Park to open. The $3.2 million plaza was funded by a donation from...
rect 557 488 727 543 Crown Fountain
Crown Fountain
Crown Fountain is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects, it opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a...
rect 308 567 439 583 Michigan Avenue
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
rect 1 316 23 442 Randolph Street
Randolph Street (Chicago)
Randolph Street is a street in Chicago. It runs east-west through the Chicago Loop, carrying westbound traffic west from Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River on the Randolph Street Bridge, interchanging with the Kennedy Expressway , and continuing west. It serves as the northern boundary of...
desc bottom-left
Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
, which is between Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
and the central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
, is commonly called "Chicago's Front Yard". Its northwest corner had been Illinois Central
Illinois Central Railroad
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois with New Orleans, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa...
rail yards and parking lots until 1997, when it was made available for development by the city as Millennium Park
Millennium Park
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously...
. Millennium Park was conceived in 1998 as the capstone of Grant Park, to celebrate the new millennium and to feature world-renowned architects, artists, designers, landscape architects, and urban planners. As of 2007, Millennium Park trails only Navy Pier
Navy Pier
Navy Pier is a long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. It is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. The pier was built in 1916 at a cost of $4.5 million, equivalent to $ today. It was a part of the Plan of Chicago developed by architect and...
as a Chicago tourist attraction. The fountain is centrally located in Chicago: it is east of Michigan Avenue
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
and its Historic Michigan Boulevard District
Historic Michigan Boulevard District
The Historic Michigan Boulevard District is a historic district in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States encompassing Michigan Avenue between 11th or Roosevelt Road , depending on the source, and Randolph Streets and named after the nearby Great Lake...
, north of Monroe Street and the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
; and south of Madison Street. Looking north from the fountain, viewers see some of the tallest buildings in the United States (Aon Center
Aon Center (Chicago)
The Aon Center is a modern skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, Chicago, Illinois, United States, designed by architect firms Edward Durell Stone and The Perkins and Will partnership, and completed in 1973 as the Standard Oil Building...
, Two Prudential Plaza
Two Prudential Plaza
Two Prudential Plaza is a super-tall skyscraper that was built in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois, United States in 1990. At 995 feet tall, it is currently the sixth-tallest building in Chicago and the thirteenth tallest in the United States. The building was designed by the firm Loebl,...
, and One Prudential Plaza
One Prudential Plaza
One Prudential Plaza is a 41-story structure in Chicago completed in 1955 as the headquarters for Prudential's Mid-America company...
).
Selection of artist
In December 1999, Lester CrownLester Crown
Lester Crown is the son of Chicago financier Henry Crown , who created Material Service with two brothers in 1919, which merged with General Dynamics in 1959. He has been a perennial member of the Forbes 400 list since 1982...
and his family agreed to sponsor a water feature
Water feature
In landscape architecture and garden design, a water feature is one or more items from a range of fountains, pools, ponds, cascades, waterfalls, and streams. Before the 18th century they were usually powered by gravity, though the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon are described by Strabo as...
in Millennium Park
Millennium Park
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously...
. Unlike other park feature sponsors, the Crowns acted independently of Millennium Park officials; they conducted independent surveys of water technologies, held their own informal design contest, and stayed active in the design and engineering of the project.
The Crowns were open-minded about the choice of artist; wanting a modern work, they solicited proposals from a list of prospective artists and architects. Jaume Plensa researched the traditions and history of fountains and studied anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
in fountain imagery. Some of his early ideas for the project referenced Buckingham Fountain
Buckingham Fountain
Buckingham Fountain is a Chicago landmark in the center of Grant Park. Dedicated in 1927, it is one of the largest fountains in the world. Built in a rococo wedding cake style and inspired by the Latona Fountain at the Palace of Versailles, it is meant to allegorically represent Lake Michigan...
, but these were soon abandoned. His presentation to the Crown family started with a slide show of fountains from the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
through the 20th century. Plensa focused on the philosophical meanings associated with fountains, their history, use and art. His presentation included computer animation
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
of facial expressions. The other finalists were Maya Lin
Maya Lin
Maya Ying Lin is an American artist who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. She is the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Personal life:...
, who presented a low-height horizontal form, and Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth century...
, who presented a fountain that would have been 150 feet (45.7 m) tall. In January 2000, Plensa won the commission to design the fountain over Lin and Venturi. The installation is a video sculpture, commissioned to operate thirty years.
Artistic design
Prior to Crown Fountain, Plensa's dominant theme had been dualismDualism
Dualism denotes a state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages. Dualism can refer to moral dualism, Dualism (from...
, which he had expanded to artworks in which the viewers are outside, and the visible subjects of the art are inside containers and hollow spaces. In the 1990s, he completed several outdoor sculptures in which he explored the use of light (The Star of David (1998) at Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
's Raoul Wallenberg Square, Bridge of Light (1998) in Jerusalem), and LED technology, video, and computer design (Gläserne Seele & Mr. Net in Brandenburg (1999–2000)). In his public art, Plensa challenged himself to involve the viewer with his art, which led to his conception of the Crown Fountain. His objective was to create a socially relevant, interactive fountain for the 21st century. Since water is the focus of a fountain, and since Chicago, and especially Millennium Park, is so greatly affected by the nearby waterfront, Plensa sought to create an eternal water work to complement the local natural inspirations. Because of the colder winters common to the climate of Chicago, Plensa created a fountain that would remained vibrant when the water was inactive in the wintertime, so the fountain is an experience of light themes and the use of video technology.
Plensa explores dualism with Crown Fountain, where he has two randomly selected faces "conversing" with each other. Plensa feels that by using faces, he can represent the diversity of the city both in ethnicity and in age. The artist intends to portray the sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
of the city by updating the collection of images. His representation has become a part of the city's pop culture; the first few episodes of the first season of Prison Break
Prison Break
Prison Break is an American television serial drama created by Paul Scheuring, that was broadcast on the Fox Broadcasting Company for four seasons, from 2005 until 2009. The series revolves around two brothers; one has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, and the other devises an...
featured shots of the fountain.
Plensa feels that the challenge in the creation of successful work of public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
is to integrate the viewer into an interactive relationship with the art. The fountain is known for encouraging its visitors to splash and slide in the reflecting pool, jostle for position under the water spout and place themselves under the cascade. This interactivity was to some degree accidental. Although the city planned for some interactivity, the transformation of the fountain into a water park for kids within hours of opening surprised Plensa. Now, when the National Weather Service
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...
issues summer heat advisories
Heat advisory
A Heat Advisory is issued by the National Weather Service of the United States within 12 hours of the heat index reaching one of two criteria levels. A warning will be issued if there is a heat index of at least 105°F but less than 115°F for less than 3 hours per day or if nighttime low...
and the Governor of Illinois
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
declares state office buildings as official daytime cooling center
Cooling center
A cooling center is a temporary air-conditioned public space set up by local authorities to deal with the health effects of a heat wave. Usually sited at several locations throughout a city, cooling centers are meant to prevent hyperthermia, especially among the elderly without air conditioning at...
s, the national press points to Crown Fountain as a respite for inhabitants of the Chicago metropolitan area.
Video production
Approximately 75 ethnic, social, and religious Chicago organizations were asked to provide candidates whose faces would be photographed for integration into the fountain. The subjects were chosen from local schools, churches and community groups, and filming began in 2001 at the downtown campus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The SAIC students filmed their subjects with a $100,000 high-definition HDW-F900 video cameraVideo camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
, the same model used in the production of the three Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
prequels. About 20 SAIC students took part in what became an informal master's course in public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
for the project. Faculty from Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago is one of the largest art colleges in the United States with nearly 12,000 students pursuing degrees within 120 undergraduate and graduate programs...
was also involved in the production of the video. The high-definition equipment was used because of the scale of the project. Because the image proportions were like a movie screen with a width far exceeding its height, the camera was turned on its side during filming.
Each face appears on the sculpture for a total of 5 minutes using various parts of individual 80-second videos. A 40-second section is played at one-third speed forward and backward, running for a total of 4 minutes. Then, there is a subsequent segment, where the mouth is puckering, that is stretched to 15 seconds. This is followed by a section, in which the water appears to spout from the open mouth, that is stretched to last for 30 seconds. Finally, there is a smile after the completion of the water spouting from the mouth, that is slowed to extend for 15 seconds. Of the original 1,051 subjects filmed, 960 videos were determined to be usable for the project. Originally, the set of images was presumed to be the beginning of a work in progress, but as of 2009 no additional videos are planned.
To achieve the effect in which water appears to be flowing from subjects' mouths, each video has a segment where the subject's lips are puckered, which is then timed to correspond to the spouting water, reminiscent of gargoyle
Gargoyle
In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved stone grotesque, usually made of granite, with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between...
fountains. Each face is cropped so that no hair and usually no ears are visible. Since there is no tripod designed for cameras turned on their sides, an adjustable barber/dentist's chair was used to minimize the need for the movement of the state-of-the-art camera during filming. Nonetheless, in some case, digital manipulation was necessary to properly simulate puckering in the exact proper location on the video. Many of the faces had to be stretched in order to get the mouths properly positioned. Additionally, each video was color-corrected for brightness, contrast and color saturation. Both the playback equipment and the final videos had to be further adjusted to account for sunlight during viewing.
Construction and engineering
The Crown family, for whom the fountain is named, donated $10 million of the $17 million construction and design cost. The Goodman family, known for funding the Goodman TheatreGoodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of Chicago theatre, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization...
, was also a large contributor; the entire $17 million cost was provided by private donations. The initial proposed cost for the fountain had been $15 million.
After two architectural firms refused the contract to make Plensa's design a reality, the firm Krueck and Sexton Architects
Krueck and Sexton Architects
Krueck and Sexton Architects is an architecture firm located in Chicago. The firm was originally established in 1979 by Ronald Krueck and Keith Olsen under Krueck Olsen Architects, with Mark Sexton joining the company the following year...
accepted. Public art was a departure from Krueck & Sexton's residential and corporate office-dominated portfolio, which includes buildings like the Spertus Institute
Spertus Institute
Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies is a leading center for Jewish learning and culture in Chicago, Illinois. Not affiliated with any single branch of Judaism, Spertus offers opportunities for people of all backgrounds to learn about and explore the Jewish experience. Its main campus is located at...
. Collaboration between the artist, architectural team, and consultants proved to be crucial to the success of the project. The fountain's black granite reflecting pool measures 48 by and has an approximate water depth of 0.25 inches (6.4 mm). It displays videos on two LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
screens, each encapsulated in a glass brick tower measuring 50 by. The firm designed a special stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
T-frame both to bear the load of the walls, which are 50 feet (15.2 m) high, and to withstand lateral wind forces. The frame holds all the glass blocks and transfers the load to the base in a zigzag pattern. Rods measuring 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) in diameter anchor to the structure and project into the frame for lateral stability, while triangular corner brackets add support.
After several dozen glass manufacturing firms were interviewed, L. E. Smith Glass Company emerged as the company to produce 22,500 glass blocks near the upper limit of the size of press glass formed from hand-poured molten glass and cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
molds. The process used sand and soda ash heated to a temperature of 2600 °F (1,426.7 °C) and "gathered" with a large clay ball resembling a honey dipper. Rather than use a standard plunger to ensure the glass that sagged off the rod spread to the corners of the mold, they relied on gravity. The full mold was annealed
Annealing (glass)
Annealing is a process of slowly cooling glass to relieve internal stresses after it was formed. The process may be carried out in a temperature-controlled kiln known as a Lehr. Glass which has not been annealed is liable to crack or shatter when subjected to a relatively small temperature change...
(reheated in an oven to 1100 °F (593.3 °C)) and cooled. Over the course of four months of production, about 350 blocks were produced per day.
The glass was custom-made at a factory in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania
Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania
Mount Pleasant is a borough in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It stands 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Population in 1900, 4,745 people; in 1910, 5,812 people; and in 1940, 5,824 people...
, and was fitted into small sections of the frame. Each section was shipped by truck from this plant in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, with approximately seven sections per tower face. The glass is white glass, rather than the usual green glass that results from iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
impurities. This has the tradeoff of increased image clarity, but greater dirt visibility. Each block is 5 by with glass thin enough to avoid image distortion. On each block, one of the six faces is polished, and the other five surfaces are textured.
The structure for the blocks was a challenge. At first, the design team had considered switching to plastic blocks, until the team found Circle-Redmont Inc., a prefabricated glass panel company in which specializes in structural glass panel systems and has supplied structural glass sidewalk panels for the New York City Subway
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
system. Circle-Redmont came up with the plan of turning grates on their sides to be used as building elements. The individual grids are 5 feet (1.5 m) tall and either 16 feet (4.9 m) or 23 feet (7 m) wide with cell capacity of an average of 250 blocks. Each tower is composed of 44 grids stacked and welded. The combination of the refraction
Refraction
Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. It is essentially a surface phenomenon . The phenomenon is mainly in governance to the law of conservation of energy. The proper explanation would be that due to change of medium, the phase velocity of the wave is changed...
of the glass and the thinness of the metal make the grid virtually invisible.
The fountain uses 11000 gallons (50,007 l) per hour, 97% of which is recycled back into the system. Getting the water to the spout took ingenuity. Although consideration was given to omitting a LED tile, it was determined that the images would then look as though they were each missing a tooth. Instead, one tile in each tower is recessed about 6 inches (152.4 mm) to allow the installation of 1 inches (25.4 mm) clear tubing for the water nozzle. The water regularly spills over the fountain and down the sides of the towers and intermittently spouts from the nozzle. Two essential custom fittings contribute to the artistic vision of the fountain: a custom glass block at the upper edge for guiding the water's descent while remaining unobtrusive, and a plastic nozzle fitted to the stainless steel frame to control the rate of water flow and reduce liability to the city for any injuries sustained by the fountain's interactive participants. The interactive participants are usually children playing in the stream from the water spout or under the cascade. The risk that the spouting water would knock people down made the design both a legal and a physical challenge.
The fountains use over one million LEDs. The inner surface of each tower uses 147 smaller screens with a total of 264,480 LED points (each with two red, one blue and two green LEDs). The physical demands of LED screens, in particular the red, green, and blue long-life light bulbs and the requisite circuitry, created three major challenges: supporting the physical structure, combating heat buildup, and optimizing perceptibility of the display. Plensa had used LED fixtures on previous projects, and thus had some experience with these issues. The LED structure is not supported as a single wall (which would be 50 feet (15.2 m) high), but rather as several segments that are noticeable as visible horizontal bands every few feet: these show where the LED equipment is supported. The heat generated is handled by fans that cool the air at the bottom, that then works its way through the chimney-like tower. Perceptibility was determined to be optimal with LED lights 2 inches (50.8 mm) behind the glass.
LEDs were chosen because they were viewed as the lowest maintenance option of the possible color changing fixtures. LEDs fit into an electrical circuit, causing illumination by the movement of electron
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...
s in the semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
material and making a filament unnecessary, so the bulbs never burn out and do not get too hot. Fins were added to the screens to keep direct sunlight from hitting the LEDs. Color Kinetics (now part of Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions, which is now called Philips Color Kinetics) ColorBlast 12 LEDs fixtures are used to illuminate the tower structures and glass in an attempt to meet Plensa's objective that the towers have a light and translucent appearance, with their internal structures reflecting light from behind the glass surface. The electronics were designed to be adaptable to the time of day, weather and season and to meet the desired century-long longevity and dependability objectives set by the design team in response to the thirty-year directive.
The 9423 square feet (875.4 m²) pool used 3 by paver
Paver (flooring)
An interlocking concrete paver is a pre-cast piece of concrete or brick commonly used in exterior hardscaping applications. Pavers were developed in Europe and introduced into the United States in the early 1970s....
s that weigh 250 pounds (113.4 kg). The pavers were rested on screw jack pedestals in order to be leveled and shimmed. The pavers had to be perfectly leveled for the water to work correctly because the fountain incorporates numerous sensors to regulate the flow and level of the water.
During construction the underground parking garage remained open. An additional challenge was designing the structure to facilitate interior access for ongoing maintenance and repairs, while accommodating two levels of underground parking underneath. The challenge was solved by combining a T-bar grid to absorb weight with about 150 "outriggers", or "tiebacks", inserted through the video wall to support the glass blocks and absorb wind loads. This design allows for the removal of individual glass blocks for cleaning or repair without disruption to the display. The filtered air inside the towers helps minimize the need for cleaning. Crown Fountains design not only included interior access for technical repairs, but also incorporated exemplary, non-discriminatory, barrier-free accessibility, because its interactivity is not limited to the able-bodied. The force
Force
In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...
of the water accounts for the entire range of possible interactive visitors.
Dedication and operation
Unveiling
Construction of the video sculpture was completed for testing without the fountain's water features on May 18, 2004. Originally, Plensa had planned to have each face appear for 13 minutes, and this continued to be the targeted duration when the testing of the sculpture occurred. Eventually, professors at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago convinced him to use only five-minute videos.Plensa's design of Crown Fountain was unveiled to the public on July 16–18, during the 2004 grand opening celebrations for Millennium Park, which was sponsored by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. At the time of the unveiling, Crown Fountain, like the nearby Cloud Gate
Cloud Gate
Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park within the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The sculpture and AT&T Plaza are located on top of Park Grill, between the Chase Promenade and...
, was incomplete because only 300 of the videos had been refined for public display. It was officially dedicated on July 24, 2004 as part of a special private fundraising party that raised $3 million for the Millennium Park Conservancy fund.
Operation
The control center for the synchronization of images, water flow, and lighting color and intensity is beneath one of the towers, in a room that covers 550 square feet (51.1 m²). The room houses high-definition videoHigh-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
servers and equipment temperature sensors. Hard drives contain all the individual electronic computer files of the face videos. Generally, the computer programs automatically perform tasks such as determining when the face will pucker and, if weather conditions permit, when to turn the water on and off. Using low- rather than high-resolution
Image resolution
Image resolution is an umbrella term that describes the detail an image holds. The term applies to raster digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail....
images was both less expensive and created a better display for the average viewer. A Barco
Barco
Barco N.V. is a display hardware manufacturer specialising in video projectors, LCD projectors, DLP projectors, LCoS projectors, LED displays, video walls, flat panel displays, automated luminaires, digital lighting and lighting controls....
show control
Show control
Show control is the use of automation technology to link together and operate multiple entertainment control systems in a coordinated manner. It is distinguished from entertainment control , which coordinates elements within a single entertainment discipline such as lighting, sound, video, rigging...
ler selects the sequence of faces one at a time and determines a random tower lighting selection of one of eight LED colors programmed into an Electronic Theatre Controls
Electronic Theatre Controls
Electronic Theatre Controls is a privately held corporation with global headquarters in Middleton, Wisconsin, United States. An international manufacturer of entertainment and architectural lighting systems, ETC offers professional lighting fixtures, lighting control consoles, dimming equipment...
(ETC) Emphasis control system. At night, the ETC system controls spotlight
Stage lighting
Modern stage lighting is a flexible tool in the production of theatre, dance, opera and other performance arts. Several different types of stage lighting instruments are used in the pursuit of the various principles or goals of lighting. Stage lighting has grown considerably in recent years...
s that illuminate the cascading water and that are dimmed by special wet-use location ground fault circuit interrupters. The control room covers an area equal to 26 parking spaces in the underground parking garage, which costs the city $100,000 annually in terms of the opportunity cost
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the best alternative that is not chosen . It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices. The opportunity cost is also the...
of lost revenue (in 2004 dollars).
Video sculpture
The front face of each tower is animatedAnimation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
with a continuous, dynamic exhibit of lights and electronic images. Although the LED screens on the towers periodically display clips of landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
s such as waterfalls, most intriguing are the display of faces of Chicago residents. About 1,000 faces of Chicagoans are shown in a random rotation, the order determined using a Barco show controller. Each face is displayed for five minutes, with a brief period between each of these videos during which the sculpture is unlit. As a result, no more than 12 faces appear per hour during the summer. However, during the winter a version without the final one minute of puckering is shown, so the video segments then are only four minutes each. The video pattern also includes a three-minute water scene every half-hour and a 30-second fade-to-black every 15 minutes. If all the faces were shown consecutively, instead of randomly, they would each appear about once every eight days. A June 2007 article in the Chicago Sun-Times reported that many of the subjects who had their images digitized
Digital image
A digital image is a numeric representation of a two-dimensional image. Depending on whether or not the image resolution is fixed, it may be of vector or raster type...
for the project had yet to either see their own images or hear of anyone who had seen them.
Each tower is illuminated from within on three sides by approximately 70 color-changing Color Kinetics LED lighting fixtures per tower, while the fourth side features opposing Barco LED display screens. At night, some of the videos are replaced by images of nature or solid colors. Also at night, the other three sides of the fountain display changing colors. The outer Color Kinetics surfaces randomly display the translucent glow of one of eight colors along with each of the inner opposing faces. As a video sculpture
Video sculpture
Video sculptures, a type of video installation, involve one or more video screens that spectators move among or stand in front of. Video sculptures formed of more than one screen may broadcast a single program or may simultaneously broadcast different interconnected sequences on several channels....
with a variety of cascade and water spout fountain modes, the sculpture is a fluid, dynamic evolving artwork.
Fountain
Crown Fountain has both slits and a grate for drainageDrainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.-Early history:...
(pictured above right) to drain the 11520 US gal (43,608 l) of water per minute. When the videos are not on the front of the tower, water cascades down each of the facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
s. The water is filtered, pumped and recirculated through the fountain. Dual pump rooms below each tower draw water from a reservoir beneath the reflecting pool. There are 12 mechanical pumps that are regulated from a control room in the underground parking garage beneath the south tower of the fountain. The water in the reflecting pool has a depth of about 0.33 millimetre (0.012992125984252 in).
Controversies
Before the fountain was completed in 2004, Art Institute of Chicago president James Wood felt the columns would be too tall and other community leaders felt that the height and scale of the project stemmed from a "pissing contest" with other park feature artists. Grant Park has been protected since 1836 by "forever open, clear and free" legislation that has been affirmed by four previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings. Aaron Montgomery WardAaron Montgomery Ward
Aaron Montgomery Ward was an American businessman notable for the invention of mail order.The mail-order industry was started by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872 in Chicago...
twice sued the city of Chicago in the 1890s to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park, and to keep it from building new ones. As a result, the city has what are termed the Montgomery Ward height restrictions on buildings and structures in Grant Park. However, Crown Fountain and Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan...
, which stands 139 feet (42.4 m) tall, were exempt from the height restriction because they were classified as works of art
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
and not buildings or structures.
In November 2006, Crown Fountain became the focus of a public controversy when the city added surveillance cameras atop each tower. Purchased through a $52 million Department of Homeland Security grant to the Chicago area, the cameras were part of a surveillance system augmenting eight other cameras covering all of Millennium Park. The city said the cameras, similar to those used throughout the city at high-crime areas and traffic intersections, were intended to remain on the towers for several months until permanent, less intrusive replacements were secured. City officials had consulted the architects who collaborated with Plensa on the tower designs, but Plensa himself had not been notified. Public reaction was negative, as bloggers and the artistic community decried the cameras on the towers as inappropriate and a blight. The city said that the cameras were largely for security reasons, but also partly to help park officials monitor burnt-out lights. The Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
quickly published an article concerning the cameras as well as the public reaction, and the cameras were removed the next day. Plensa supported their removal.
Critical reception
Crown Fountain, Trevi FountainTrevi Fountain
The Trevi Fountain is a fountain in the Trevi rione in Rome, Italy. Standing 26 metres high and 20 metres wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world....
, and Buckingham Fountain, as well as natural water features such as Old Faithful, are examples of the ability of water to attract people and hold their attention. Crown Fountain has more interactivity than other Chicago fountains, such as Buckingham Fountain and Lorado Taft
Lorado Taft
Lorado Zadoc Taft was an American sculptor, writer and educator. Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois in 1860 and died in his home studio in Chicago in 1936.-Early years and education:...
's Fountain of the Great Lakes
Fountain of the Great Lakes
Fountain of the Great Lakes or Spirit of the Great Lakes Fountain is an allegorical sculpture by Lorado Taft in the Art Institute of Chicago South Stanley McCormick Memorial Court south of the Art Institute of Chicago Building in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United...
and Fountain of Time
Fountain of Time
Fountain of Time, or simply Time, is a sculpture by Lorado Taft, measuring in length, situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance within Washington Park in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. This location is in the Washington Park community area on Chicago's South Side...
(all but the last are in Grant Park). These other Chicago fountains are traditional in that they discourage viewer touching; Buckingham Fountain is surrounded by a fence, and Taft's fountains are surrounded by moat
Moat
A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...
s. In contrast, Crown Fountain provides an open invitation to play in the fountain's water.
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
describes the fountain as an exemplary feature of the city's numerous urban parks. Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
architecture critic Blair Kamin
Blair Kamin
Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune, a post he has held since 1992. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for The Des Moines Register. He also serves as a contributing editor of Architectural Record...
, who is pleased with the sculptures' verticalness, says the fountain helps appropriately depict the modern 21st-century urban park. The Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
describes the fountain as "eye-catching, crowd-friendly ... high-tech [and] ... contemporary". The New York Times calls the fountain an "extraordinary art object". Frommer's
Frommer's
Frommer's is a travel guidebook series and one of the bestselling travel guides in America. The series began in 1957 with the publication of Arthur Frommer's book, Europe on $5 a Day. Frommer's has expanded to include over 350 guidebooks across 14 series, as well as other media including the award...
describes the fountain as public art at its best. The beauty of the fountain is, as the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
explains, that it is high-concept art for all to enjoy. The Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
refers to the fountain as a "techno-fountain". The fountain is praised for its technical features by industry magazines and has won various awards. The project won the 2006 Bombay Sapphire prize for its design work with glass. Critical reviews were not unanimous in their praise. One Chicago Tribune critic was not impressed with JumboTron
Jumbotron
A JumboTron is a large-screen television using technology developed by Sony, typically used in sports stadiums and concert venues to show close-up shots of the event. Although JumboTron is a registered trademark owned by the Sony Corporation, the word jumbotron is often used by the public as a...
-like art, although he conceded the participatory element reminded him in a positive way of the jungle gym
Jungle gym
The jungle gym, monkey bars, or climbing frame, is a piece of playground equipment made of many pieces of material, such as metal pipe or rope, on which children can climb, hang, or sit. The monkey bar designation refers to the rambunctious, climbing play of monkeys.-History:The first jungle gym...
element of the Chicago Picasso
Chicago Picasso
The Chicago Picasso is an untitled monumental sculpture by Pablo Picasso in Chicago, Illinois. The sculpture, dedicated on August 15, 1967, in Daley Plaza in the Chicago Loop, is tall and weighs 162 tons...
.
The fountain is featured on the cover of Philip Jodidio's 2005 book, Architecture: Art. Although Plensa is considered to be a conceptual artist, according to Jodidio, Plensa created a work whose architectural aspects are paramount. Its location juxtaposed with the Historic Michigan Boulevard District's skywall highlights these aspects. Jodidio considers the work to be a modernization of the gargoyle theme, and feels that the scale of the enlarged faces humanize the work and challenges the architecture. The towers are an integral part of the skyline that have achieved rare permanence for contemporary art.
External links
- Millennium Park map
- City of Chicago Loop Community Map
- Photos of controversial surveillance cameras in initial critical blogpost
- archives at Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...