Celebrating the Millennium!

Millennium Park, that is. What a wonderful urban space, bordered by gorgeous Chicago architecture and featuring the greatest public art.

The picture above was taken by Henry from the window of the University Club on Michigan Avenue, where we enjoyed a scrumptious rehearsal dinner in a setting worthy of Harry Potter. And I think you'll agree that the views looking east were incomparable.

We were lucky enough not only to be able to attend an event in this grand venue, but our lodgings for the wedding weekend were just a block away, in the fabulous Palmer House; sharing rooms made the price doable, and the location was fantastic! (On the right is a photo of its opulent lobby, fairly recently renovated and restored to its Jazz Age glory.)

The best thing about the hotel, though, was its proximity to the Park. We were able to make more than one visit there, and couldn't seem to stop taking pictures of its most iconic symbol, which has not one, but two, equally evocative names: The Bean, and the Cloud Gate.

The Bean peeks out from among the Park's trees,
if you approach it from the south

Its quirky nickname and its ethereal "official" name are somehow both appropriate. It does look like a kidney bean, in overall shape...

...although it could also be called the "egg," don't you think?

But Cloud Gate fits, too. Especially when you consider the reflections of sky and buildings that it offers...

doesn't that look like it could be a Gate to another dimension?

The combination of its shape, shininess (we did wonder how hard it is to keep it polished), and reflectivity are just irresistible, and absolutely require you to take dozens of pictures.

Experiencing the different aspects of the sculpture is so much fun! First of all, we had trouble finding ourselves on the wildly convex surface. But we finally got the hang of it. Here we are, waving in the red box...

But the outer, bean-like contours aren't all there is to it! Underneath is a whole different, both convex and concave experience; we're in another red box here...

What an absolutely gorgeous, funny, and sublime piece of public art!

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And that's not all the Park has to offer, either. Not far away is another clever, whimsical sculpture that offers an additional feature, especially welcome on hot summer days.

The Crown Fountain produces enough cooling spray for scores of hot Chicagoans at a time, especially when the projected faces pucker up, every 5 minutes or so, and shoot out a firehose worth of water...

(If you're interested in how all this works, the Wikipedia entry linked above gives an exhaustive account of the fountain's design, engineering, and construction.)

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But I'm still not through! There's also a huge outdoor amphitheatre in the Park that is a work of art in itself...

The Pritzker Pavilion is empty in this picture, but when we emerged from our marathon visit to the Art Institute on Thursday evening, there was a concert going on that entertained the whole Park.

For sure, you need to be within walking distance to this fabulous Park whenever you visit Chicago...we certainly will be on our next trip there!

Along another river

Last time, I told you about some stupendous natural architecture along one of the rivers that I traversed in August.

Some architecture of the man-made variety was on display along one of the others...

Thanks to a recommendation from our newest niece-in-law, we took an architecture tour of the Chicago River during our visit to that city. And we loved it!

As you'll see in these pictures, we had a gorgeous morning, weather-wise, and got to see some amazing buildings. Believe me, I had quite a chore in narrowing down the number of pictures to include here; I wouldn't want to overload Blogger, after all  .

You can see a little of our mode of transportation in the picture above, but we found it interesting that some of our fellow tourists chose a different type of boat to navigate the river...

Maybe next time we'll take this option...we had enough fun that a return visit sounds very appealing.

Our guide was entertaining and incredibly informative; however, I hate to say that I probably didn't retain as much as I wish I had of the fascinating information he gave us about his city and its buildings.

But even the buildings I can no longer identify were so cool... like this one:

or this one...

or this one...

And as you can see from this brief sample, there were all sorts of styles on offer, from the ornate to the slick.

I do remember some tidbits about some of the structures, though. For instance, the architect of these guys wanted every surface rounded, because "there are no straight edges in nature":

And the handsome black, also curvy, building on the right here (and you can also see our great guide in this shot as well) was built where it is because of a loophole in the building code that has since been closed...

It was built on the Lake Michigan side of Lakeshore Drive, where such buildings are supposed to be prohibited, but since it was built on "landfill," instead of "land," there it is. The ordinance has since been clarified and this is the only structure so close to the Lake. We heard all kinds of interesting and quirky Chicago stories like that. So fun!

Of course one of the buildings you can't mistake is the Sears Tower (which is apparently now the Willis Tower, but that doesn't have quite the same ring). You can just see its antennae peeping out a bit to the left of the landfill building above. And here's a bit closer look at it and its neighborhood:

We heard that they are working on a continuous walk along the riverside (hmmm...I wonder where they might have gotten the idea for that?). It should end up being a wonderful walkway, especially since they have, at least in recent historical terms, shown a lot of respect for the river. 

One building that we saw which exemplifies this connection was this beauty:

Not only are the reflections of the buildings across the river a great free decorative element (and this was planned) but the graceful curve of the river-side of the structure exactly echoes the curve of the river at this point. Our guide told us that on the street-side, the building's facade is perfectly flat; it's only when you see it from the river that you can appreciate the real artistry. Very imaginative and cool!

Of course, Chicago is more than just architecture. And we got to sample many of its famous sights, sounds and tastes, from museums to deep-dish pizza (not our favorite style, but we did try it). And of course there's the L, which we enjoyed riding with our 3-day-passes.

Here's a shot I took on purpose of some more gorgeous buildings, with a train in front for scale and perspective...

What a great city! I'm so glad we got to see as much of it as we did. The tour we took with Wendella is one we'd recommend to anyone visiting Chicago...especially if it's for the first time!

Wordless Wednesday: building that must not be named

Museum-a-palooza

Not since I lived in London have I spent time in a city with so many wonderful museums! Where even the views from the front porches are spectacular (the photo above is from the front lawn of the Adler Planetarium).

As a bonus, like in London, most of them were free—for us at least, thanks to my recent inspired purchase of a family membership at our local Witte. Hooray for reciprocal admission!

Although we didn't have too much time in the city, we made the most of it, and visited four amazing museums.

The Art Institute (the one we had to pay for, but boy! was it worth it!) actually lets you take pictures of their paintings, so it's not surprising most of the photos we took were of their fabulous stuff.

I've been in some great art museums over the years (the American and British National Galleries, for example, and both London Tates). But I don't think I've ever been in a museum that offered so many paintings famous for their inclusion in Dr. Brown's History of Art class (still one of my favorite college courses).

In addition to the Magritte above on the left, here are a few more examples:

Cézanne, perhaps my favorite Impressionist-era painter
(for some reason not in the Artic's online catalog?)

a breathtakingly beautiful Renior

a haunting Monet (they have so many of his it was hard to decide
which one to show you, but this one is so unusual, it got the nod;
curiously also not in the catalog)

detail from perhaps their most famous painting, Seurat's Sunday on La Grand Jatte

And to show you that they cover more periods than just the early moderns, here's another of my favorite artists, represented by this enormous Assumption with tourist included for scale (thanks to Henry for this snap)...

And of course I always get a kick out of well-executed trompe l'oeils (although the best is still the one we saw in Vicenza)...

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The other museums we visited are the types—science- and history-related—that we usually like better than art museums (although we might make an exception this time—the Art Institute was really that good).

But the science museums in Chicago are world-class, and they didn't disappoint; although we were somewhat disappointed that we didn't have more time to spend in them.

First we went to the Museum of Science & Industry, largely on the recommendation of friends that we see their German submarine...yes, really! The picture on the right is of a bunk area in the sub, which we toured, complete with a torpedo as bedside table.

Not only was the sub enormous (see the picture below, with a few museum visitors in it for scale) and a fascinating artifact, but the story of its capture and move to the museum was a great story.

What a unique exhibit! And another example of my maxim that there are an infinity of stories that can be told about World War II.

Other highlights of our much-too-brief visit at this museum were the model trains...

ending up the journey from Chicago to Seattle

...and a really scary maze in the imaginative section featuring mathematical patterns in nature—for a while, we wondered if we'd be able to find our way out at all!

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Our quickest visit was to the Planetarium, and unfortunately we didn't have enough time to see any of the shows. As it was, our bus having to compete with traffic from a pre-season football game made us late to our nephew's wedding—the actual reason for our being in Chicago in the first place!

(BTW, congratulations to Collins and Julianna, and thanks for getting hitched in this glorious city, giving us a reason to visit it!)

In addition to the great view of the downtown skyline the Planetarium offers, they had a lot of good exhibits inside that almost made up for our missing their special entertainments. We spent a good bit of our time looking at their Apollo 13 stuff, and I thought this graphic depiction of human exploration of the solar system was very clever; each line represents a mission to that heavenly body:

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The most famous museum we saw was the Field, and we really barely scratched its surface, in spite of spending three hours there. 

I particularly enjoyed all their Native American exhibits, including this exquisite beadwork, which always impresses me:

Their main hall, home of the famous T-rex, Sue, is impressive enough...

...but when you consider that the galleries around it on two levels are chock-full of fascinating exhibits, you can begin to understand the scope of the place.

Here's another shot, from one of the second-floor side halls, of some selfie-taking tourists:

The only good thing about not being able to see enough of these great museums is that we know there will be plenty of interesting things awaiting us on future visits!

Two libraries, two worlds

I've commented before on how varied my month+ away from home has been.

But I can't describe any better the wide gulf that separates the worlds I visited, than by telling you about two libraries that we encountered.

The first one was a building that anyone would be awed by...the former Chicago Public Library that's now that city's Cultural Center. The historical marker plaque on the right gives you some information about its history and design, and you can learn more from Wikipedia.

What an amazing structure! Acres (or so it seems) of gorgeous marble, accented with fabulous tile mosaics and sculptured glass. No books, now, but as a temple dedicated to the value of learning and cultural transmission of ideas, it's nearly unsurpassed.

The architectural highlight is probably the Tiffany glass dome that crowns the top floor. But I also enjoyed noting all the insets featuring authors from around the world that were popular at the turn of the last century, when the building was erected. (Most of them still are....) Here are two shots showing partial views of the dome, with some of the gorgeous stone- and mosaic-work surrounding it:

And here's a closeup of some of that tile, that comes with a little story.

In a gesture that we found to be incredibly common in and around Chicago, a helpful security guard saw me starting to take a picture of one of these table-like banister tops, and suggested I snap the other one instead. The one I was originally looking at, he told me, had some cracks, whereas the other was in better shape. 

We found Chicagoans to be the friendliest and most helpful people, particularly for big-city dwellers, that we've ever encountered. This impression, in addition to all the wonderful sights and activities the city offers, have put it on our list for a return visit at first opportunity.

Anyway, here's the tile closeup:

Yes, this former library was pretty impressive. But as wonderful, in a completely different way, was another, active library that we stumbled across over 1000 miles away, in a totally different setting.

The little town of Abiquiu, New Mexico, famous for Georgia O'Keefe and as the title of an episode of Breaking Bad, is in a wonderful natural setting (more about this in future posts). We have often stopped by Bode's, on the highway that runs alongside the town, for a cold beverage after our Rio Chama trips, and we did so this time, too.

But we'd never explored the town itself, and decided to take a look. It has some interesting old adobe buildings, a lovely church and an interesting cemetery, but its library is perhaps the most impressive building in town.

No, it doesn't look much like the Chicago Cultural Center, but its heart is in the same place. Here, in this little (2010 population: 231) town where the streets aren't even paved, there's a library. It has three rooms full of books, and even has a section of local history and several computers for public use.

I was both charmed and moved by this little building. And when I got home and was going through my pictures, I was glad to see that I took a photo of this Milton quote in the Chicago building, which expresses the thought that connects these two unlikely libraries, as well as their counterparts around the world...

This spirit is alive and well in Abiquiu as well as downtown Chicago, and I find solace in that to help me weather these stormy times for our country. Don't you?

Spice of life

I've taken some complicated trips in my time, but I'm not sure anything can rival the variety of venues, activities, and scenery that I've been lucky enough to experience during the last month.

This hectic period will soon be over and when I'm back home and able to relax a bit, I'll start telling you more about all these adventures. But for now, here's just a taste...

inside the Cloud Gate, looking up

sunset from Ghost Ranch

gorgeous fungi in a canyon grotto

the famous "L"...great for transport unless they close your station!

rocks along the Rio Chama

great buildings and great sky

model train steams thru the mountains at the Museum of Science & Industry

scouting Aragon Rapid on the Rio Chama

a stand of lovely pines near our campsite

I wonder what caught my eye in this Adler Planetarium display?

huge Mayan stele in the Field Museum

Rio Chama transport

one of my favorites...out of MANY at the Art Institute

adorable great-nieces and -nephews watching ants at work

And finally, this lovely inscription on the walls of the former Chicago Public Library (which is now the Chicago Cultural Center) pretty much sums up my feelings about this wonderful city as well as the other places I've visited during this whirlwind month. My approximate translation: "O sweet voice! The welcome sound of one's mother tongue in a strange land!"

How sweet it is to feel welcome wherever one travels!