12/12/07

Millennium Park + Pritzger Initiative

Priztger kicked it into gear.
The family had given Gehry the Pritzger Prize. So when they wanted someone to spiff up the SOM beaux arts design, he was invited to decorate someone's arch. He took the call but said that he's not a design doctor for someone else's mistakes. He wants a big project or nothing.
Pritzgers tell the city they'll give heavy bread if FG gets the gig. Like 5-10 million or something in that order of magnitude. Shalom and begorrah, he gets the gig. Do a band shell but it has to be sculpture so it doesn't contravene the covenant of the park being open and clear or something.
Then everyone wants in and pretty soon, the extremely past-pull date SOM cast concrete is out (except for a little remnant with geraniums and spindles like ladies' calves), and the whole project is shot in Freak-O-Scope.
Every family named after a crane or an auditorium is bidding for the bike shelter or the fountain or the garden.
It's the next best thing to a copse. If it has to be artifacts, not trees and sky, it's pretty good.

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