Crown Fountain (Chicago, Il) : View of the north tower, depicting face

Creator:

Plensa, Jaume, 1955-

Published/Created:

Millennium Park at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Streets, Chicago, Illinois, United States
1999-2004

Physical Description:

50 ft (height)

Date Depicted:

8/15/2006
1950 AD - 2010 AD

Materials:

glass block
LED video screens

Notes:

Crown Fountain, named in honor of Chicago's Crown family, was designed by Catalan conceptual artist Jaume Plensa, and is the first of its kind in the world. Transparent glass block bricks are used to build two 50-foot (15 m) towers standing at either end of a long, black granite plaza submerged under an eighth of an inch layer of water. Behind the glass bricks are high-tech LED video screens. When the screens are illuminated they show the faces of nearly a thousand individual Chicagoans, which showcases the vast diversity of the city. Playing on the theme of historical fountains based around gargoyles with water coming through the open mouth of the creature, each video includes specific moments where the person purses his or her lips and water spouts from a point in the display, such that it appears as if the person is spitting the water out. This happens roughly every five minutes, and there is also a continuous stream of water that cascades over the images. [The water is on from mid-spring through mid-fall each year (weather permitting,) while the images remain on year-round.]

Variant Titles:

Millennium Park: Crown Fountain

Topics:

Architecture -- United States -- 20th century -- (YVRC)
Architecture -- United States -- 21st century -- (YVRC)

Period/Style:

Twenty-first century

Culture:

American

Accession Number:

2A2-US-CH-MP-3-B1

Genre:

fountains (AAT)
interactive art (AAT)
public art (AAT)
sculpture (AAT)
video art (AAT)

Format:

Image

Content Type:

Films, Video Testimonies & Lectures
Paintings & Drawings
Sculptures, Models, & Architecture

Rights:

Copyright Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc
The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.

Access Restrictions:

Yale Community Only

Digital:

contemporary (1960 to present); portraits; Fountains; parks (recreation areas); towers; waterfall; waterspout; faces; wading pool construction ; photography built works; hydraulic structures; water distribution structures; fountains; visual works

Source Creator:

Gilchrist, Scott

Source Title:

Archivision Module Three

Source Created:

2878 Chamonix, Montreal QC
Archivision, Inc.
8/15/2006

Source Note:

Purchase, Visual Resources Collection, May, 2011; photographer Scott Gilchrist

Yale Collection:

Visual Resources Collection

Digital Collection:

Visual Resources Collection

Local Record Number:

4152

OID:

10160756

PID:

digcoll:1852957