Tuesday, September 25, 2007
News / Chicagoland My favorite things: Millennium Monument
Posted by Whet Moser on 09.25.07 at 11:08 AM
No one ever mentions Millennium Monument, the neoclassical peristyle that is both a literal throwback (an almost identical one was at the same location for about half the 20th century, part of Burnham's grand plan) and an aesthetic one in the midst of a giant postmodern architectural theme park.
That's because it's boring and ugly. But it's boring and ugly in a very interesting way, my favorite aesthetic object lesson in the city.
Neoclassical architecture is the official architecture of overarching civic power and old-school fuck-you money.* Some of it's actually good (the delicate Wrigley building), some of it's endearingly narcissistic (the Tribune Tower), some of it's kind of dull, like the Millennium Monument. But it all says one thing: We built this city on rock and reputation. Rarely is it quite so stubbornly obvious as the Millennium Monument, which is why I begrudgingly love it.
*Alternately, baby-boomer fuck-you money is more van der Rohevian.
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Yes! I said this when it was finally completed. Because of the cram-it-in-there arrangemet of the park, there's no way to fully appreciate any of it. I've had friends disagree, but to me it's an exercise in "let's see how much artsy stuff we can smush together." I mean, imagine "The Bean" sitting by itself in the far south end of Grant park near the Field Museum, without the distracting skyline background (it's is called "Cloud Gate" after all, not "Michigan Ave. Gate". Imagine the Frank Ghery designed music shell given the same open space as the "old" Grant Park stage (the one that hosts Taste of Chicago main acts), instead of closely flanked by the pointless tree garden thing or whatever it is. Even the Millennium Monument would look better in a spot similar to the Abraham Lincoln momument further south in the park.
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