the parsley.blog.landscape.life

Wedding photography in process in the Lurie Garden, Millennium Park, Chicago

I admit it: I just can’t get enough of watching people take wedding photos in public places. I’ve seen it happening in cities all over – in Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Diego, Boston, and here in Los Angeles.  I wish I’d gotten more pictures of the scenes I’ve witnessed. sometime I’ll have to go down to the Mulholland Fountain or the Rose Garden in Expo Park, both high-volume wedding picture locations, and try to get some shots of the action.

I’m fascinated watching the photographers set up the shots, and I always wonder exactly what vision they’re trying to capture.  I suppose I recognize, in this lengthy and elaborate manipulation of people and backgrounds, some (noble? foolish? doomed?) impulse that also tempts me – to pin down a moment that might be gone before you get a chance to notice it.  I’ve written about this here before, of course.  and I have the feeling I will again.

I didn't get the shot! they're taking a picture of the shadow of the bride and groom kissing.

I was so rushed and tired and footsore when I was in Millennium Park, it probably colors my impressions of the place somewhat, my disappointment and frustration that it didn’t add up to a more coherent experience. nevertheless, I do think the place is absolutely jammed with missed opportunities. and of course, while freely admitting I am biased, I absolutely do believe that the challenge of getting all the disparate elements of a major public space to sing together in harmony is the kind of job that landscape architects should be doing, at the highest levels.

it's mean to pick on this kind of thing. but I saw a lot of it.

I know nothing about the master planning process that the park went through or what the overall landscape vision might have been; I can only report on my experience, and make a few educated guesses about what happened.  I also feel hampered by not having had the opportunity to see more of Chicago’s fantastic parks system, to understand better how Millennium Park did and didn’t fit in to the overall system. Chicago, of course, is famous for both its architecture and its public art, and I got only the barest glimpses of these things. but when I’ll be able to go back and study Chicago properly, I just don’t know.

Millennium Park has such outsized showpieces with such forceful personalities; that they overpower “the landscape” might seem like a very specialized way to express the problem of the place.  I think that phrase “the landscape” has kind of a fuzzy-muzzy meaning to most civilians outside the confines of the architecture world, and certainly doesn’t seem to belong in the heart of the city.  but the “landscape” in “landscape architecture” doesn’t just mean the dirt under your feet.

there’s a skeleton under a place that most people don’t see, and usually aren’t consciously aware of – the result of a whole series of big and little decisions: where will all the things you need to include go? how will people get from one part of the place to another, horizontally and vertically?  how wide will the paths will be and how they will be paved? what will happen at the edge of a space to tell you where its boundary is?  what kind of trees will you plant – canopy, skyline, specimen – and where, and how will you give them what they need to live?  what kind of benches, lights, water fountains, trash containers will you order? and then there is a whole other set of decisions about what to say NO to, what won’t be allowed, what should be edited.

these are all tough decisions, and they get argued over and second-guessed more times than you could possibly imagine.  but they are the backbone of a place.  they hold it up, make it proud of itself, make you experience it as a place, not a placemat.

it is hard to express the essence of a place. it is even harder to articulate exactly what is missing, what a place could have been.  but one message from Millennium Park seems unavoidable - big “gestures,” as we architecture types like to say, do not accomplish placemaking all on their own.

there is a bridge that leads into the park from a terrace on the top level of the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.  from that bridge, you can get a nice view of the Pritzker Pavilion, and you can also see a very well-defined edge of a very well-defined space in the park, and that’s the Lurie Garden.

I looked up the plans for the Lurie Garden on the web and I sort of wish I hadn’t – for me, it doesn’t enhance the experience of the garden to know about things called extrusion plazas and dark and light plates, that kind of naming gets a little too jargon-y for me in a hurry. but I do get a kick out of knowing that the big hedge in the 15-foot tall metal frame is called the Shoulder Hedge.  because, as we established earlier, Chicago is the city of the big shoulders, stormy husky brawling etc.

this hedge is clearly not to be trifled with. this is a hedge that’s telling you something you should know, and it will kick your ass if you don’t listen.  it’s telling you that something will change when you go through those portals, that there is going to be a big difference between inside and outside.  it’s also a bodyguard: something important must be inside.  when there are thousands of people streaming through the park for an event, it’s going to make sure whatever is inside stays safe.

there are a lot of very careful choices made in the Lurie Garden: stone, water, wood, metal, d.g. (that’s a kind of gravel, for you civilians.) and all the elements are fitted together precisely, and with attention to creating places where people might walk, look, and sit.

in a recess inside the big hedge, a quiet bench.

out on the main boardwalk, the sun against the stone on a September afternoon.  the wedding photographers obviously had this place in their back pocket for their special “kissing photo” effect, and I saw all kinds of people similarly having fun with their own shadows.  these two young folks must have been at the conference: I see a green ASLA travel mug, just like the one I have.  (hey ASLA: best conference swag EVER.)

at last!  safe haven for sketchers!  I’m guessing she was from the conference too, perhaps a student. she’s standing on the upper level, the edge of the “dark plate”, looking west over the lower level, the “light plate.”  I find I didn’t get enough photos of the “dark plate,” and I can’t really make heads or tails of the official design narrative as to exactly what was planted up there, but I gather it was taller, bigger, “wilder” stuff, expressing the pre-urban history of the site.  or something.  I believe there were trees.

most of my pictures show the “light plate,” a large swath of perennials, in the very specific colors and shadings of one mid-September day.  I have no doubt that the colors change just a little, every day.  I have learned that they leave the dead stuff there in winter, to be encrusted with snow and ice, and only cut it back when spring gets going.  I don’t know what season here I want to see more: winter, spring, summer.  hell, I want to see every single day.

landscape architects were in charge here, in this particular corner of the park.  and an important part of the team here was the planting design.  I understand the plants are not all area natives, and the palette of perennials is actually very diverse – and meticulously chosen, of course.  but the effort doesn’t show.  probably some people come here and think it’s a natural meadow of some kind.  I can understand why they might feel that way.

I’ve talked about the colors and textures and light in this place, but I don’t have pictures to show what happens when you step inside, the part you don’t need your eyes for.  inside that big ironclad hedge, you are immediately hit with a wave of sounds and smells, almost theatrically intense. the smell I can’t describe, because everyone knows you can’t describe smells.

but, just as I can identify the smells of southern California chaparral, the way this place smelled seemed very familiar to me, very Midwestern.  there is a kind of combination of plant and flower and earth smells that I would associate with the Midwest, and it’s no doubt subtly different in Chicago than it is in Iowa or Michigan, both places I knew when I was a kid, but it reminded me of both of those.  late summer, the start of fall, some past September.

and a million singing bugs.

I came up the path and I met this guy, in his very stylish sunglasses, and I asked if I could take his picture.  he’s got a tiny camera there in his hand, but just at the moment he’s not using it.

my camera remembers the exact time for me, and stamps it on every picture.  grasshopper, September 18, 2009, 1:34:37 PM.  but my camera was on California time, so it was really 3:34 in Chicago, with the sun already lowering.

home from Chicago. too soon.  I don’t want to leave this garden. last September seems like a long time ago.

at the southwest corner of Millennium Park sits the Crown Fountain, two 50 foot tall towers with video projections of the faces of Chicagoans, and water cascading down them.  the faces face each other, which is why the sides and back of each tower look a little nondescript from outside the park – some urban camouflage against the backdrop of skyscrapers.

the Crown Fountain, of course, is another photo magnet, and heavily represented on flickr.  what still pictures don’t convey is the slightly eerie quality of the faces (though it’s a friendly sort of eerieness); the video is slowed down and occasionally runs backward, and the giant faces don’t do anything more dramatic than look around a little, smile, and occasionally pucker up to spit water.  the giant faces move so subtly, and keep themselves so carefully in frame, that they seem trapped in the confines of their tower, as if they’re afraid to move too much and tip the thing over. but there is a kind of benevolence about them, as if they are keeping it low-key on purpose to avoid scaring anybody.

appropriate enough, since the mandatory to-do item here applies mostly to kids.  kids: play in the water.  adults: watch the kids.

I had the same thought I so often have at science museums and the like – why should kids have all the fun?  no, I didn’t wade, but with my feet in the shape they were in, it might not have been such a bad idea.

there were a few bad pixels in the towers, unfortunate, but probably inevitable.

it takes some patience to wait around for the “spitting” to happen, so most of my pictures don’t show it, because I was running around too fast.

now here’s a picture that’s way too boring for the photo sites.  this is the entrance to the Crown Fountain plaza from Michigan Avenue.  in the foreground is the sidewalk.  your entrance into this magical experience begins when you set foot on those fabulous concrete stairs.  what’s that little square thing?

well, there you have it.  the name of the artist and the date.

I didn’t find myself spending too much time at the Crown Fountain.  once you’ve seen a couple of the video faces and taken a couple of cute kid pictures, you’ve pretty much had the experience.  there would be nothing wrong with killing some time watching the action, but did I mention I was in a hurry?  I’m always in a hurry.  or at least I was.

next, here’s some Gehry, all the way from Los Angeles to you, Chicago.

the Gehry I know in person, of course, is the Disney Hall in downtown LA.  (I haven’t made any concerted effort to photograph it, but I have taken a few, because I couldn’t possibly not, there’s one in this post.) and I could pick some nits, but I’ve always liked the experience of it, and as crazy as the forms look from a distance, they are surprisingly friendly up close – you can get right up to the base of the building’s “skin” and climb around inside it and see how it’s put together.  it doesn’t just make for an amazing photo, it’s fun to be around.  it was fun watching them build it, too.

I wondered how the Pritzker Pavilion and the BP Bridge would feel, especially since the Pavilion is so clearly a bandshell, and those always look like sort of forlorn when there’s nothing going on.  like you’ve arrived at the wrong time.

those red seats certainly do look empty, but they make some nice lines to go with the swoops of the pavilion and the “trellis” over the space, with the fog sweeping in over the buildings. I’m sure a concert here is terrific, with a state-of-the-art sound system strung overhead on that curved grid.  but at the moment, with no concert going on, does it feel too much like it’s just waiting for something to happen?

maybe a little, if you focus on all that silent equipment.  but behind the chairs is a big lawn area, where you can have lawn seating during the performances.  the rest of the time…one does what one does on a big lawn.

one plays frisbee, or just sits around.  this was about the only place in the park I felt like I could just flop down, and I did.  there is still nothing that beats a big chunk of good turf for flopping on; and the “trellis” overhead, which brings the sound all the way back when there’s a concert, has an amazing effect when it’s just silent over the grass.  it feels like a roof, but an expansive, soaring, open roof.  under it, you feel somehow protected, but also in a mood to scan the skyline and watch the clouds go by.  you’re enclosed but you can look out; nothing’s better than that.

oh look, an axis!  there are so many places throughout Millennium Park where it feels like there ought to be an exciting line of sight, and there isn’t, but here’s one to love.  it almost doesn’t look like it was done on purpose: the Bean is hiding a little between those trees, kind of mischievous-looking.  I wish there was a way to walk straight out from this grassy field, under the bean, and right out onto Michigan Avenue and into the heart of the Loop: but there isn’t.  you have to go down and around.  but what a processional arch that Bean would make.

even the transition between the fixed seating and the lawn area makes for a nice hangout spot:

darn it, one of the best pieces of landscape in the park, welcoming and civil, and it’s in the architecture. score one for the architects, curse them.

there was after all one Pavilion moment when I felt like I was, in fact, there at the wrong time:

don’t get me wrong.  I have been to a lot of public parks and it would take a LOT for a park bathroom to really scare me.  but this still looks a little ominous.  I’m sure it handles concert crowds brilliantly: down there is a giant hallway, and HUGE capacious bathrooms; clean, utilitarian, well-maintained.  four stars for function.  but heading down this stair on an ordinary day with no concert crowd – well, I didn’t feel scared so much as outscaled.  you could have driven a truck down that hallway.

the bridge sneaks up on you a little, it feels very much behind the Pavilion, but it lets you know right away there’s something going on. somebody’s been practicing architecture.

nice materials, well-constructed, forms that have the courage of their convictions…and I’m going to find something a little lacking in the setting.  do you sense a theme here?

I could live without those safety bollards, but that’s a minor nitpick.

hmm, those barriers around the water fountains don’t look like part of the original design.  I think some concert goers must have been intruding where they weren’t wanted.  but in fact I’m not really convinced by that fence, either – it’s nicer than your usual temporary barricade but it still feels tacked on.

cleverly enough, the bridge, by running parallel to the busy street below, serves as an acoustical barrier for the amphitheatre.  I can’t help but think that adds to its elegance.

more soon…

so, what is Millennium Park, really?   I was confused every time I went through it. even all these months later, I’m still confused.

even looking right smack into it from the highest vantage point available, I still don’t get it.

would a map help?

the park is a stupendous technical achievement, 24.5 acres constructed at great expense over structures – commuter rail lines, and parking garages.

it’s a huge civic showpiece.  everyone is very proud and happy about it.  people flock to it.  tons of tourists swarm all over it – even in September when schools are back in session – and big crowds gather there for big events and performances. it has a couple of superstar pieces of large-scale public art, a megastar turn of architecture, and a really lovely, densely textured, almost otherworldly (or perhaps I should say hyperworldly) garden.

but the whole thing, as a place to be experienced, doesn’t really have much to say for itself.

it’s organized on a grid.  the space has been carved up into pieces in a workmanlike fashion to serve its various functions, and there are paths and trees separating the pieces, and there are benches and lights and stuff, and lemonade stands, and various lesser buildings, and a lot of infrastructure.

but to my eyes, nothing about the landscape overall says, here is a place to get excited about.  now, you are in this place, and no other.

the big showpieces are truly dazzling.  you’ve seen a million pictures of them for very good reason.  they’ll knock your eyes out when seen in person.  I’ll give you the highlights: “Cloud Gate,” the Crown Fountain, the Pritzker Pavilion, the BP Bridge.  these are on the mandatory to-do list.

except… there is a slight sense of disappointment at how single-purpose each of the showpieces tends to be.  there is not a lot of room for an unplanned experience.  you have a pretty clear task set out for you at each of the big knick-knacks.

your first task:

have you found your way to the Bean?   take a picture.

pose for a picture. take pictures of yourself. take pictures of each other. take pictures of the people taking pictures.

(if you are an infant, you are exempted from the rule that you must take a picture upon approaching the Bean.   don’t worry, Dad’s got you covered .)

got a wedding party? you know what to do.

“Cloud Gate” is possibly one of the greatest camera magnets of our times, just in time for the golden age of everyone’s-got-a-damn-camera.  it’s really tremendous fun.  it’s a very social experience.  nobody is embarrassed to strike all kinds of silly poses.  I saw these folks, and did the same, even though I was by myself.

on the other hand, when I tried to pull out a sketchbook, I got some funny looks.  it did make me self-conscious enough not to try sketching for long.  maybe if I’d brought a posse…

how often they polish this thing, I don’t know, but they must have to.  it is seriously smudgy when you look at it up close.  not to mention the seagulls hanging out on top.  I suppose some bird spikes wouldn’t look quite right up there.

I hope that art classes come here to draw.  photography classes, for sure.  I hope science classes come here for lessons on optics.  they must.

where am I in this picture?  aaaaaaaaaah!  I’m invisible!

no, I am actually in that picture.  about three pixels of me, camouflaged against the greenery.  in all the others, I’m just lost in the crowd.

.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about “Cloud Gate” being so completely a photo opportunity.  it might be nice to just look.

more soon…

the one thing I knew for sure I wanted to see in Chicago, in the little bit of time I would be able to sneak off from the conference, was Millennium Park.

Millennium Park, Chicago, Sept. 2009

wherever landscape architects and urban designers and others concerned with parks and the public realm gather, Millennium Park has become a touchstone for all the things we wish we could do in our own cities with our own projects. the civic pride! the ambitious public art and architecture!  the GEHRY, including the only gehry-designed bridge anywhere!  the award-winning garden!  the massive budget!  the international renown! the photo ops, oh, the photo ops!

Crown Fountain, Millennium Park, September 2009

I don’t quite know where that particular buzzphrase “a world-class park” got started, but surely this is the original recipe, the standard by which all others are measured.  countless images are being downloaded even as we speak, to be included in countless powerpoints. I too had used it as precedent and example.  but I had never seen it.

"The Bean," really called "Cloud Gate," Millennium Park, Chicago

as it happened, I didn’t really do too much homework on Millennium Park before I got there.  I didn’t read up on the architecture and art, beyond knowing that the real name of “The Bean” is “Cloud Gate” and it is by Anish Kapoor, who does other polished things that I had seen in museums; that the big fountain with the video walls is the Crown Fountain; that the Lurie Garden was designed by a team led by Kathryn Gustafson and Piet Oudolf; that the park as a whole was known for its truly world-class budget, said to total nearly half a billion dollars when all was said and done.  yes, there were cost overruns and delays, at which nobody ought to be surprised.

without knowing too much of the backstory, though, I just wanted to go and have an experience of the park.  I only got a quick glimpse of it at night, through the trees, while trundling through the Loop on the airport shuttle.  over the long weekend of the conference, I was able to go back to Millennium Park two different times; didn’t take any official tours, though I saw swarms of landscape architects all over the place when I was there.  this swarming behavior in iconic public spaces is characteristic of the species, especially during the ASLA conference.

Swarm of landscape architects in the Lurie Garden, Millennium Park

(that’s the Art Institute in the background, see the previous post for the view from inside it.)

this word “iconic” gets tossed around a lot in architectural and landscape architectural discussions.  it’s a little bit problematic, the way we use it.  especially for landscape architects, because landscape is so rarely seen as iconic, the way a famous building or landmark or work of art might be seen.  if you really dig right down to the root of the word, after all, an icon is a thing designed to be worshipped. brrrr, landscape architects usually aren’t too comfortable with that idea.  we want to create spaces for people!  welcoming spaces!  successful spaces!  spaces that work!

and we get kicked around way too much to think of what we do as iconic! usually.

photography creates its own bias here.   don’t get me wrong, I’m nuts for taking photos myself.  and though I’m a rank amateur at it, I love a good architectural photo as much as the next “Architectural Record” subscriber.  but it’s hard to capture the experience of being in a place in a photo, still less when you’re talking landscape.  building exteriors and sculptures lend themselves rather well to the photo ops; it’s a much harder and subtler task to capture the experience of being in a designed space.  it does not lend itself to that exquisite tripod shot that we marketing people love to have on our hard drives.  it’s prone to visual confusion.

Lurie Garden in foreground, Chicago skyline in background, Millennium Park

around the conference, I ran into people, the way you do, and usually Millennium Park would come up.  have you seen it yet? have you taken any tours?  did you hear about the sunrise tour?  (I did *not* make it to the sunrise tour.)  and because I am me, I would always ask, What did you think?

people were actually a little hesitant.  they were impressed, but… well, they liked it, but…  I’d press them: did you see this and that?  did you see the bridge?  did you see the benches in the Lurie Garden?  did you see the bicycle rental place?  and usually, people were confused.  they spent a lot of time in the park but they missed things.  they got turned around and lost. I myself went in and out of the park several times before I actually figured out where the Crown Fountain was.  you’d think it would be hard to miss.

Millennium Park, from the Michigan Avenue sidewalk

but depending on where you’re coming from, it’s actually a little hard to see.

all through the park, there is something distinctly funky with the sight lines, the wayfinding, the edge conditions; to be really unembarassedly jargony, the sense of arrival. I kept thinking about all those catchphrases I was taught and looking for them.

by the end of the conference, I was pontificating about it when I met people on the trade show floor:  ”It doesn’t feel,” I would declare in my best armchair critic manner, “like a landscape-driven project.”

and in fact, it doesn’t.  it’s obviously a rip-roaring success, crammed with people having fun and snapping photos; but the experience of moving into and through it is disjointed, disorienting. you feel a bit lost, and then you come across the iconic sights, and all is seemingly forgiven: you grab your camera and run up for your photo ops.  I sure did.  there will be lots more Cloud Gate and Crown Fountain in the next posts.  but also: hinky grade changes, lack of landscape identity, maintenance oopsies, and scary scary bathrooms.

Lurie Garden, Millennium Park

not to spoil the punchline or anything, but I really did like the Lurie Garden best.  more soon…