Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark

By Timothy J. Gilfoyle and The Chicago History Museum

Book Overview

At its opening on July 16, 2004, Chicago's Millennium Park was hailed as one of the most important millennium projects in the world. "Politicians come and go; business leaders come and go," proclaimed mayor Richard M. Daley, "but artists really define a city." Part park, part outdoor art museum, part cultural center, and part performance space, Millennium Park is now an unprecedented combination of distinctive architecture, monumental sculpture, and innovative landscaping. Including structures and works by Frank Gehry, Anish Kapoor, Jaume Plensa, and Kathryn Gustafson, the park represents the collaborative efforts of hundreds to turn an unused railroad yard in the heart of the city into a world-class civic space--and, in the process, to create an entirely new kind of cultural philanthropy.

Timothy Gilfoyle here offers a biography of this phenomenal undertaking, beginning before 1850 when the site of the park, the "city's front yard," was part of Lake Michigan. Gilfoyle studied the history of downtown; spent years with the planners, artists, and public officials behind Millennium Park; documented it at every stage of its construction; and traced the skeins of financing through municipal government, global corporations, private foundations, and wealthy civic leaders. The result is a thoroughly readable and lavishly illustrated testament to the park, the city, and all those attempting to think and act on a monumental scale. And underlying Gilfoyle's history is also a revealing study of the globalization of art, the use of culture as an engine of economic expansion, and the nature of political and philanthropic power.

Born out of civic idealism, raised in political controversy, and maturing into a
symbol of the new Chicago, Millennium Park is truly a twenty-first-century
landmark, and it now has the history it deserves.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226293491
• ISBN13: 9780226293493
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 474 Pages
• Weight: 3.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 9.2" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Extremely valuable for students of urban development

This is a very richly detailed history with beautiful photos and excellent background on the many alternatives that were proposed over the years for the 25-acre site that has become a spectacular success story in urban revitalization.

Great Treatrment of "Public Art"

The avowed purpose of Millennium Park is to memorialize, via the reactions of ordinary citizens, the contribution this great city made to public art. It works really well that way. Ordinary people who visit express consistent delight in what they see and experience, 365 days a year, in a city not known for friendly outdoor weather. So, this has been a success, despite the temptation to conclude that government-created art will inevitably be pedestrian (no pun intended) or bureaucratic in nature. Debate the "art part" as much as you will - this place delights people, and this book helps us understand how that happens.

Well written, well documented

For those who appreciate the City of Chicago, and have visited -- or are planning to visit -- the Millenniun Park on the Lakefront, the book explains in detail the evolution of the site, and why and how the current, impressing architectural, artistic and landscaping complex has been conceived and built. How it influences the view of the City from the Lake, and the urbanism of the whole area.

Millennium Park

This book is quite beautiful and contains a huge amount of information about the origins, creation and current use of Millennium Park in Chicago. I purchased it for a friend, as a hostess gift, when I went to visit her. Had I seen the book before purchasing it, I might not have done so, given its "textbook" quality. I'm not sure the casual reader would be interested in all the details provided but it certainly is an impressive collection of information.

Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark

Beautiful pictures. Well-written descrption from its inception to conclusion, with good bibliography.