Lurie Garden

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Lurie Garden
Historic Michigan Boulevard District and Randolph Street streetwalls from Lurie Garden
Historic Michigan Boulevard District and Randolph Street streetwalls from Lurie Garden
Type Public Garden
Location Millennium Park
Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates Coordinates: 41°52′53.33″N, 87°37′18.45″W
Size 2.5-acre (1.0 ha)
Opened July 16, 2004
Operated by City of Chicago
Annual visitors Free Public
Status Open year round

Lurie Garden is a 2.5-acre (1.0 ha) garden located at the southern end of Millennium Park in the Loop area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. Designed by Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf, and Robert Israel,[1] it opened on July 16, 2004. The garden is a combination of perennials, bulbs, grasses, shrubs and trees.[2] It is the featured nature component of the world's largest green roof. The garden cost $13.2 million and has a $10 million endowment for maintenance and upkeep.[3][4] It was named after Ann Lurie.[5]

The Garden is composed of two "plates". The dark plate depicts Chicago's history by presenting shade-loving plant material. The dark plate has a combination of trees that will provide a shade canopy for these plants when they fill in. The light plate, which includes no trees, represents the city's future with sun-loving perennials that thrive in the heat and the sun.[6]

Contents

[edit] General information

Millennium Park with Lurie Garden beyond the Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Millennium Park with Lurie Garden beyond the Jay Pritzker Pavilion

The Lurie garden constantly depicts the dynamics of nature, but it is most colorful from June through the autumn. It is not a botanical garden with a scientific purpose and is instead a public garden. Thus, it does not use a plant labeling system. The plantlife of the garden consists entirely of perennials. It does not now nor does it intend to incorporate annuals, which rarely survive Chicago winters. Approximately 60% of the plantlife in the light and dark plates are plants that are native to Illinois.[6] It is located across the street from the Art Institute of Chicago's new Modern Wing, and within the park it is south of Jay Pritzker Pavilion, east of the South Chase Promenade and Southwest Exelon Pavilion as well as the future site of the Nichols Bridgeway, west of the Southeast Exelon Pavilion, southwest of the BP Pedestrian Bridge.

[edit] Culture

Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing from Lurie Garden

The world-class garden was an essential element of the park, as the motto of Chicago is "Urbs in Horto", which is a Latin phrase meaning City in a Garden.[1] The Garden also pays tribute to Carl Sandburg's monicker of Chicago as the "City of Big Shoulders" with a 15-foot (4.6 m) "shoulder" hedge that protects the perennial garden and encloses the park on two sides.[1]

The "shoulder" hedge, which serves as the northern edge of the garden, fills the space next to the void of the great lawn of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. These hedges use a metal armature, to prefigure the mature hedge.[4] The shoulder hedge is an evolving hedge screen of deciduous Fagus (beech) and Carpinus (hornbeam) and evergreen Thuja (arborvitae) that will eventually (over the course of approximately ten years) branch horizontally to fill the permanent armature frame and create a solid hedge.[6]

The garden was one of the gardens depticted in the 2006 In Search of Paradise: Great Gardens of the World exhibition that was shown from May 12–October 22, 2006 in the Boeing Galleries and that was later shown in the Chicago Botanic Garden. The Chicago Botanic Garden developed the exhibition that included 65 photomurals of gardens from 21 countries using photographs were less than five years old.[7]

[edit] Design

The boardwalk and canal bisecting the garden facing south
The boardwalk and canal bisecting the garden facing south
The boardwalk and canal bisecting the garden facing north
The boardwalk and canal bisecting the garden facing north

Gustafson, known generally for sculptured parks and lively waterworks and specifically for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain,[5] and Israel, a renowned lighting and set designer,[5] determined the thematic concepts such as the placement of paths, and the shapes of perennial beds.[4] Oudolf, a Dutch master of perennial,[5] designed the flower beds which contain 26,000 perennial plants in 250 varieties native to the prairie.[4] The garden is designed with four primary components: the Shoulder Hedge, the Light Plate, the Dark Plate and the Seam Boardwalk.[8]

The shoulder hedge frames the garden's north and west sides,[8] and the hedge and armature help to protect the perenials from heavy pedestrian traffic.[9] The 14-foot (4.3 m) armature also provides a permanent pruning guide.[9] In addition to the Carl Sandburg symbolism, the western hedge also forms a topiary referring to greek mythology.[9]

Lurie Garden is bisected by a diagonal boardwalk, which represents the natural Lake Michigan seawall that still bisects Grant Park. The boardwalk divides the garden into two plates, one of which contains muted colors, the other bright colors.[4] The dark plate represents the early landscape history of the site, while the light plate represents the landscape of the future.[8] The Seam Boardwalk divides the two plates diagonally and serves as a demarcation between two eras of Chicago's landscape development.[8]

West shoulder hedge and armature
West shoulder hedge and armature

The boardwalk has a 24-inch (61 cm) wide step[9] on one side. The step leads down to a 5-foot (1.5 m) wide canal, which runs between this step and a limestone wall. The water is invigorated with jets, and visitors are allowed to sit and dangle their feet in the water.[5] It traces the angle of a historic subterranean seawall that remains beneath the site and used to be the boundary between the marshy Lake Michigan shoreline and the city.[8] The boardwalk also crosses over stepped pools that expose a 5-foot wide seam of water.

The garden has a hardwood footbridge that passes over the shallow water in the canal, and that divides the garden diagonally.[1] The entire garden slopes downward to present itself for the new Renzo Piano Modern Wing addition to the Art Institute of Chicago Building.[4] Oudolf's lighting accents the hedges, and pathways are lit by in-ground lighting fixtures.[9] There were complaints that the construction of the Nichols Bridgeway clutters the picturesque view of Lurie Gardens and in so doing diminishes its prairie aspect.[10]

[edit] Materials

The garden is a sustainable design built on lightweight geofoam under the soil. All curbing, stone stairs, stair landings, wall coping, and wall cladding in the interior of the Garden use midwestern limestone. The garden uses granite for paving and wall veneer. Where it is exposed, the granite surfaces have a flamed finish. The boardwalk and wood benches in the Garden are fabricated from FSC-certified Ipe. The garden primarily uses patinized Naval Brass (all metal plates in the Seam), patinized architectural bronze (all handrails), and powdercoated steel (the armature).[11]

[edit] Plantlife features

The seasonal highlights are as follows: Spring highlights include - Star of Persia, Arkansas Blue Star, Wild White Indigo, Quamash, Shooting Star, Prairie Smoke, Virginia Bluebells, Herbaceous Peony, Phlomis, Meadow Sage, Burnet, and Tulip; Summer highlights include - Giant Hyssop, Ornamental Onion, Butterfly Weed, Purple Lance Astilbe, Calamint, Rusty Foxglove, Pale Coneflower, Daylily, White Blazing Star, Bee Balm, Oregano, and Culver's Root; Fall/Winter hightlights include - Japanese Anenome, White Wood Aster, Northern Sea Oats, Tennessee Coneflower, Purple Love Grass, Rattlesnake Master, Bottle Gentian, Common Eulalia Grass, Red Switch Grass, Little Bluestem, Prairie Dropseed, and Toad Lily.[12] The garden features dozens of types of perrenials and bulbs.[13] The garden features both ornamental and prairie grasses.[14] It includes evergreen and deciduous shrubs.[15] Its trees serve as its foundation.[16]

[edit] Awards

The garden is the result of an invited international competition that occurred from August to October 2000. Following the contest the garden was commissioned in October 2000 and completed in June 2004.[17] Among the entrants in the competition were Louis Benech, Dan Kiley, George Hargreaves, Jeffrey Mendoza and Michael Van Valkenburgh.[5]

The garden has won numerous awards: Best Public Space Award by Travel + Leisure, 2005;[18] Intensive Industrial Award by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, 2005;[19] Award of Honor by WASLA Professional Awards, 2005; Institute Honor Awards for Regional & Urban Design, American Institute of Architects, 2006 (Millennium Park);[18] and Award of Excellence, American Society of Landscape Architects Professional Awards, 2008.[11]

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities considers the park to be the largest green roof in the world as it covers a structural deck supported by two reinforced concrete cast-in-place garages and steel structures that span the space above Illinois Central Railroad tracks.[20][21]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Art & Architecture: Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  2. ^ Art & Architecture: The Plant Life of the Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  3. ^ Herrmann, Andrew (2004-07-15). Sun-Times Insight. Chicago Sun-Times. Newsbank. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Freemen, Allen (November 2004). Fair Game on Lake Michigan. Landscape Architecture Magazine. American Society of Landscape Architects. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Raver, Anne (2004-07-15). NATURE; Softening a City With Grit and Grass. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  6. ^ a b c Frequently Asked Questions. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-08.
  7. ^ Hurwitz, Jill (2006-04-28). In Search Of Paradise: Great Gardens Of The World. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-11.
  8. ^ a b c d e Contemporary Urban Waterscapes: designing public spaces in concert with nature. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  9. ^ a b c d e Art & Architecture: The Lurie Garden Design Narrative. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  10. ^ Voice of the People (Letters). Chicago Tribune. Newsbank (2008-05-15). Retrieved on 2008-06-05.
  11. ^ a b GENERAL DESIGN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE. American Society of Landscape Architects. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  12. ^ Art & Architecture: The Plant Life of the Lurie Garden - Seasonal Highlights. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  13. ^ Art & Architecture: The Plant Life of the Lurie Garden - Perennials and Bulbs of the Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  14. ^ Art & Architecture: The Plant Life of the Lurie Garden - Grasses of the Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  15. ^ Art & Architecture: The Plant Life of the Lurie Garden - Shrubs of the Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  16. ^ Art & Architecture: The Plant Life of the Lurie Garden - Trees of the Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  17. ^ Art & Architecture: Facts and Dimensions of The Lurie Garden. City of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  18. ^ a b The Lurie Garden. ggnltd.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  19. ^ Awards. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (2005). Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  20. ^ Contemporary Urban Waterscapes: designing public spaces in concert with nature. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.
  21. ^ Bernstein, Fred A. (2004-07-18). ART/ARCHITECTURE; Big Shoulders, Big Donors, Big Art. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved on 2008-06-01.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
City of Chicago
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:See also: Chicago metropolitan area
v • d • e
Millennium Park
Features and attractions
Surrounding streets
Influences
Other
Cloud Gate Jay Pritzker Pavilion BP Pedestrian Bridge
v • d • e
 
Chase Promenade/Exelon Pavilion North Exelon Pavilion
West   Lurie Garden    East
South
Art Institute of Chicago Art Institute of Chicago Grant Park